THE 


:vl 


„..v/ 


ity  of  California 
lern  Regional 
:ary  Facility 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 


PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.arcliive.org/details/diaryofjeanevartOOstociala 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 


HE  DIARY  OF 
JEAN    EVARTS 

Byv  CHARLES  FRANCIS 
STOCKING,  E.  M.,  AUTHOR 
OF  CARMEN  ARIZA,  Etc. 


THE      MAESTRO      COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS    CHICAGO  ILLINOIS    MDCCCCXXI 


COPYRIGHT  igi2 

BY  CHARLES  FRANCIS  STOCKING 

PUBLISHED  AUGUST  1912 

jlll  Rights  Reicrvd 


T^VENTIETH  EDITION 


PRINTED  IN   U.  S.  A. 


DEDICATION 

To  the  one  whose  unfathomable  love  has 
made    this    book    possible — my    Mother 


Truth  is  within  ourselves  .  . 
There  is  an  inmost  center  in  us  all. 
Where  Truth  abides  in  fulness;  and  to  know 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  the  imprisoned  splendor  may  escape 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without. 

— Robert  Browning. 


MAY  8TH 


MAY  8TH 

ALIFORNIA  — and  May!  The 
warm  earth  quivers  with  expect- 
ancy, and  the  air  is  full  of  the 
promise  of  new  life.  The  soft 
winds  that  blow  from  the  inland 
are  driving  the  rain  clouds  back 
to  the  ocean,  and  whispering  to  the  barren  hill- 
^sides  and  brown  valleys  a  message  of  roses,  of 
flaming  poppy  fields  and  summer's  bounty.  I  hear 
the  meadow  lark's  sweet  call,  a  pean  of  sheer 
gladness  for  life.  I  hear  the  twitter  of  swallows, 
and  catch  the  gleam  of  the  tanager  as  it  flashes 
past  mo,  too  occupied  with  its  renewed  responsi- 
bilities to  be  mindful  of  my  presence.  Far  down 
in  the  valley  below  me,  the  cattle,  just  turned 
into  the  new  grass,  are  rejoicing  in  the  abundance 
that  is  spread  before  them.  I  love  to  watch  the 
cloud-shadows  glide  along  this  great  valley  and 
melt  into  the  hills  far  beyond.  I  love  to  sit  here 
at  sunset  and  see  the  wonderful  changes  of  color 
that  tint  the  landscape  when  the  glowing  sun  tips 
those  dijftant  hills.  I  love  to  linger  here  when  it 
has  sunk  behind  the  mountains,  with  night  falling 
around  me,  and  watch  the  ^ars  come  out  and  the 
lights  appear  in  the  farm  houses  far  below.  Be- 
yond those  sentinel  hills  lies  the  bay,  with  its 
Golden  Gate  opening  out  into  the  great  ocean.  I 
.caught  a  glimpse  of  this  when  they  brought  me 
here,  and  my  heart  was  filled  with  longing  to  sail 
out  through  that  sunlit  portal  and  into  the  vast 
unknown — on  and  on,  until  I  should  come  to  that 
other  gateway  through  which  I  shall  soon  pass. 

9 


THE  DIAKY  OF 

Why  did  I  have  to  wait?  Why  was  I  brought 
here  to  linger  in  an  agony  of  longing  for  life, 
while  everything  about  me  rejoices  in  the  glad- 
ness of  springtime?  As  I  write  I  hear  the  sad 
call  of  a  turtledove  from  the  ledge  below,  and  my 
forlorn  hope  responds  to  its  mournful  notes.  It 
is  not  the  fear  of  death  that  weighs  upon  me,  but 
the  thought  of  the  injustice  of  it  all — I  am  so 
young,  and  poverty  and  sickness  have  given  me 
so  little  chance.  It  is  so  hard  to  give  up  all  that 
the  years  might  have  brought  me  of  happiness 
and  love — so  hard  to  know  that  my  druggie  has 
been  vain,  my  hopes  empty. 

I  tried  to  read  my  Bible  this  morning,  but  I 
get  so  little  from  it  that  I  have  laid  it  aside. 
When  I  opened  it  and  read  Jesus 's  words:  "I 
am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they 
might  have  it  more  abundantly,"  such  a  feeling 
of  resentment  came  over  me  that  I  was  afraid. 
Sometimes  I  wonder  if  Jesus  really  did  live. 
Sometimes  I  think  he  must  have  lived,  but  that 
he,  too,  was  mi^aken — deceived  just  as  we  poor 
mortals  are — whipped  through  a  few  short  years 
by  misfortune  and  calamity,  and  cheated  in  the 
end  by  false  hopes  and  empty  promises.  The 
Bible  is  such  a  Grange  book !  No  one  under^ands 
it,  and  lea^  of  all,  I  think,  the  preachers.  The 
miniver  from  the  little  church  in  the  village  has 
been  to  see  me.  When  I  told  him  that  I  had  been 
brought  here  to  die,  he  asked  if  he  might  pray  for 
me.  And  then  he  prayed  to  God  to  spare  my  life, 
if  it  be  His  will ;  but  if  not,  to  grant  me  peace  and 

10 


JEAN    EVARTS 

fortitude  to  meet  the  end,  and  at  la§t  life  eternal. 
It  seemed  a  mockery!  Mu^  we  die  that  we  may 
live?  Are  we  so  imperfe(5l  that  God  must  operate 
through  suffering  and  death  to  make  us  whole! 
And  if  we  are  imperfect,  who  made  us  sol  If  God 
did  not,  is  there  another  power  that  can  mar  His 
creation?  And  is  God,  then,  omnipotent!  There 
is  no  answer  given  us  but  the  less  than  schoolboy 
logic  of  the  preachers;  and  my  weary  thought 
long  since  ceased  its  efforts  to  accept  this. 

Ill  these  la^  days  the  world  about  me  has 
echoed  the  voices  that  I  hear  so  con^antly  within. 
Sometimes  they  whisper  patience,  and  bid  me 
hope  that  the  ^orms  which  have  beaten  down  my 
soul  in  this  experience  called  life  shall  rage  in 
vain  again^  that  portal  through  which  I  go. 
Sometimes  they  ring  through  my  soul  with  the 
wild  clamor  of  huge  bells,  and  ^ir  my  confused 
thought  into  fierce  prote^s  again^  the  laws  that 
foreordained  me  to  misery  and  death.  Again, 
they  sink  into  whispered  temptations  to  destroy 
my  life,  and  end  at  once  the  confusion  and  pain. 
But  I  dare  not  do  this — weakness  has  sapped  my 
courage — and  I  could  not  know  that  in  killing  the 
body  I  had  destroyed  the  Self. 

How  the  awful  thoughts  of  Self  beat  upon  my 
tortured  soul  when  the  ^orms  of  temptation  are 
raging!  This  Self  that  I  have  found  here,  ca^ 
into  the  world  without  my  knowledge  or  consent, 
emerging  from  utter  darkness,  only  to  sink  again 
into  darkness  ju^  as  profound  and  mysterious! 
This  Self  that  in  its  brief  passage  between  the 

11 


THE  DIARY  OF 

two  dark  my^eries  carries  the  weight  of  ages  of 
faith  and  prayer,  a  crushing  burden  of  countless 
longings  and  fears — bearing  the  executioner's 
awful  sentence,  yet  driving  to  illumine  the  ^ony 
pathway  along  which  it  journeys  to  the  end  with 
the  feeble  light  of  a  hope  that  it  mu^  have 
brought  from  the  darkness  without. 

And  these  ^orms  are  followed  by  hours  of 
deeped  gloom,  of  mental  exhau^ion  and  despair. 
At  such  times  I  lament  bitterly  the  slavery  of  my 
druggie  for  exigence  that  gave  me  no  oppor- 
tunity for  ^udy  and  meditation,  for  perchance  I 
might  have  found  that  which  now  would  help  me 
bear  the  limitations  of  life  and  reconcile  me  to  its 
end.  But  I  have  known  only  work — work  that 
m.ounted  to  desperation,  that  crowded  my  life 
with  cares  and  worries — work  that  had  no  end 
beyond  the  procurement  of  the  bare  necessities  of 
a  futile  exiiJtence.  Often  at  the  close  of  a  Sunday 
of  feverish  preparation  for  the  cares  of  the  com- 
ing week  I  have  crept  into  the  restful  calm  of  a 
church,  and  there,  in  the  atmosphere  of  humble 
devotion,  apart  from  the  turmoil  of  every-day 
living,  have  prayed  that  I  might  learn  something 
of  the  great  Spirit  that  the  preachers  tell  us 
stands  back  of  all  life.  There  I  would  hear  much 
about  the  goodness  of  God,  and  the  need  of  shap- 
ing my  course  to  the  Infinite;  but,  alas!  no  one 
seemed  to  know  just,  how  this  could  be  done,  and 
no  one  could  tell  me.  I  would  come  away  in 
greater  confusion,  convinced  that  the  end  of  all 
philosophy  is  that  we  can  know  nothing.     Wise 

12 


JEAN   EVARTS 

men  may  continue  to  argue  and  dispute,  as  they 
have  since  the  dawn  of  reason;  but  the  children 
of  this  world  ^ill  suffer  and  they  ^ill  die.  The 
heavens  are  of  brass,  and  the  ear  of  Omnipotence 
is  ^onel 

And  I  am  waiting — waiting.  While  the  warm 
sunlight  kisses  the  hilltops  and  flows  out  into  the 
budding  valley  beneath,  while  the  birds  carol 
forth  their  joy,  and  the  cool  winds  leave  the  em- 
brace of  the  snow-clad  peaks  and  hurry  out  to  sea, 
touching  the  sleeping  foliage  as  they  pass  and 
bidding  it  come  forth,  I  am  waiting.  And  yet — 
though  I  know  the  words  are  vain — my  torn  soul 
pours  out  its  agony  in  a  prayer  that  I  cannot 
check  as  it  druggies  to  my  lips  in  this  dark  hour 
— 0  Heavenly  Father,  if  such  there  be,  and  if 
Thou  do^  see  and  hear  the  children  of  men,  whose 
hearts  are  bursting  with  an  unutterable  longing 
to  know  Thee,  look  upon  me,  and  if  Thine  arm  be 
not  shortened,  Wretch  it  forth  and  let  me  live,  O 
God,  let  me  live ! 


13 


MAY  lOTH 


MAY  lOTH 


OW  the  charm  of  this  glorious 
springtime  grips  me,  body  and 
soul,  despite  my  sufferings !  To- 
day I  saw  the  sun  rise.  From  my 
ledge  of  rock  I  watched  the  dull 
sky  take  on  its  parti-colored  morn- 
ing robes,  gray,  purple,  pink,  and  then  a  dazzling 
white,  as  the  sun  itself,  heralded  by  long  arms  of 
light  that  pierced  an  opening  ft)r  it  through  the 
pearly  clouds,  Stood  forth  boldly  upon  the  glitter- 
ing peaks  and  seemed  to  bid  the  darkness  flee  be- 
fore it.  Whose  mandate  did  the  sun  obey?  Who 
framed  the  law  by  which  the  clouds  parted  and 
the  darkness  fled?  Is  there  an  intelligence,  not 
yet  understood  by  men,  that  manifests  itself 
through  Nature  and  through  us — or  is  it  chance? 
And  can  a  power  expressed  through  such  imper- 
fect agencies  be  itself  more  perfe6t  than  they? 
No,  there  is  no  other  conclusion  admissible. 

The  hunting  season  has  opened,  and  the  sound 
of  shooting  is  heard  from  all  dire6tions.  I  pity 
the  poor  quail,  such  innocent,  pretty  things — and 
yet,  their  lot  is  far  less  desolate  than  thaft  of  man, 
duped  by  promises  always  held  before  him,  but 
never  fulfilled. 

I  have  disobeyed  the  do6tor  by  coming  out 
here  today,  but  I  feel  now  that  I  shall  make  but 
few  visits  to  this  beautiful  spot,  for  the  warning 
that  came  yesterday  bids  me  remember  that  my 
time  here  is  short.  It  was  a  hemorrhage,  and  I 
cannot  but  think  it  the  beginning  of  the  end.  I 
had  been  watching  the  hunters  in  the  valley  below, 

17 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

and  as  I  leaned  over  the  ledge  I  caught  sight  of  a 
man  coming  along  the  path  that  leads  to  this 
place.  I  mu5t  have  made  a  noise  that  attra6led 
him,  for  he  looked  up,  and  when  he  saw  me  he 
smiled  and  touched  his  cap.  Then  I  felt  the  blood 
rush  into  my  throat — the  valley  seemed  to  rise  up 
before  me — I  grew  faint  and  sank  to  the  ground. 

When  I  opened  my  eyes  again  I  was  lying  on 
the  grass  some  distance  back  of  the  ledge,  my  head 
supported  in  the  man's  arms,  and  his  handker- 
chief pressed  to  my  lips.  As  my  thought  cleared, 
my  first  feeling  was  one  of  anger  that  I  was  ^ill 
living ;  my  next  v/as  one  of  wonder,  as  I  saw  him 
smile  at  me  again.  But  men  who  find  pleasure  in 
shooting  harmless  quail  may  be  expe6ted  to  smile 
in  the  presence  of  death.  Yet — as  I  think  back 
today  and  try  to  recall  the  circum^ances — was  he 
hunting? — for  I  am  sure  he  did  not  carry  a  gun. 

But  I  was  too  weak  to  talk ;  and  when  he  asked 
me  if  I  thought  I  could  be  taken  home,  I  only 
nodded  and  sank  back  again  in  his  arms,  as  he 
lifted  me  and  Parted  down  the  pathway  to  the 
house.  How  easily  he  carried  me,  and  how  gentle 
he  was!  The  rancher's  wife  was  di^ra6ted  when 
she  saw  my  condition,  and  sent  her  boy  off  po§l- 
ha^e  for  the  village  do6lor.  All  was  hurry  and 
confusion,  and  I  did  not  see  the  Granger  again 
after  he  laid  me  on  the  couch  in  the  dingy  little 
parlor. 

And  now  as  I  think  of  him,  some  vague  mem- 
ory seems  to  ^ir  my  thought,  some  inward  in6tin6t 
tells  me  that  he  is  not  a  Stranger,  that  I  know  him 

18 


JEAN    EVARTS 

— perhaps  well — as  well  as  one  knows  the  glitter 
of  the  sunbeams  or  the  flush  of  the  sky  at  dawn — 
yet  where  have  I  seen  him  before? 

But  while  my  thought  puzzles  with  these  ques- 
tions, there  flows  over  my  soul  a  wave  of  despair, 
a  chilling  sense  of  utter  desolation,  and  I  see  once 
more  the  battlefield  of  life  Wretched  out  before 
me,  where  good  and  evil  are  grappling  in  eternal 
warfare  for  the  souls  of  men.  Why  should  I  care 
to  live  I  What  sane  reason  have  I  for  clinging  to 
a  life  that  mu^  end  in  extinction !  It  is  ordained 
that  there  shall  be  perpetual  combat  between  man 
and  Nature — that  all  living  forms,  from  the  tini- 
e§l  insert  to  man  himself,  shall  forever  slay  one 
another  I  The  spirit  of  ^rif  e  is  in  our  souls — the 
lu^  of  blood  poisons  the  sources  of  life — it  per- 
meates the  deeds  of  men — it  manifests  in  the 
germs  that  contend  for  the  mastery  of  their 
bodies !  The  universe  has  been  created  to  be  de- 
^royed,  and  darkness  awaits  mankind ! 

I  have  been  warned — and  now  I  am  driving  to 
keep  my  thoughts  from  the  dread  anticipation  of 
the  next  attack — thoughts  that  weigh  like  a  mill- 
^one  upon  my  soul.  But  I  shall  try  to  come  out 
to  this  ledge  every  day,  for  when  the  final  sum- 
mons comes  I  hope  to  meet  it  here,  with  my  face 
turned  toward  the  Golden  Gate  that  opens  into 
the  ocean  of  my^ery,  and  my  thought  fixed  upon 
the  wonders  of  the  scene  before  me,  the  hills  and 
the  valley,  the  di:§lant  peaks,  and  the  glow  of  the 
sunset  sky.    And  I  am  ready — let  it  come  quickly. 


19 


MAY  IITH 


MAY  IITH 


HIS  morning  the  Granger  came 
again.  I  was  sitting  on  the  ledge, 
watching  the  mi^s  melt  away  over 
the  valley  in  the  morning  sun.  The 
day  was  a-glitter,  and  a  thousand 
voices  filled  the  air  with  sounds  of 
gladness.  I  heard  him  coming  along  the  path  be- 
hind me,  but  before  I  could  rise  and  tell  him  how 
grateful  I  was  for  his  kindness  to  me  when  I  was 
so  much  in  need  of  help,  he  was  at  my  side  and, 
with  his  hand  on  my  shoulder,  was  telling  me  to 
remain  seated. 

Then  he  sat  down  beside  me  and  began  to  talk 
about  the  glorious  view  from  the  ledge.  He  spoke 
of  the  wealth  of  beauty  that  was  spread  out  so 
lavishly  upon  the  landscape  before  us,  and  won- 
dered what  mu^  be  the  real  beauty,  of  which  this 
was  but  an  imperfect  manif elation.  I  asked  him 
if  this  was  not  real  beauty  that  we  were  enjoying, 
and  he  replied  that  it  was  only  our  concept,  and 
not  the  reality.  When  I  asked  him  what  he  meant 
by  the  reality,  he  said,  God. 

I  laughed  at  this,  and  asked  hi-m  if  he  knew 
anything  about  God,  for  if  he  did  he  might  be  of 
great  service  to  us  poor  mortals  who  were  hunger- 
ing for  such  information.  To  my  surprise  he  took 
this  remark  seriously,  and  replied  that  he  did 
know  something  about  Him,  and  that  he  was  daily 
adding  to  this  knowledge. 

Then,  I  know  not  v/hy,  I  asked  him  if  his  God 
could  cure  me  of  tuberculosis.  With  a  perfe6tly 
serious  face  he  replied  that  He  could.    For  some 

23 


THE  DIARY  OF 

moments  I  sat  looking  at  him,  wondering  if  he 
really  meant  it.  Then  a  smile  lighted  up  his  face, 
and  putting  his  hand  on  my  arm  he  said  gently, 
''The  eternal  God  is  thy  refuge  and  underneath 
are  the  everla^ing  arms,  and  He  shall  thru^l  out 
the  enemy  from  before  thee;  and  shall  say,  De- 
^roy  them." 

A  sharp  reply  sprang  to  my  lips,  for  in  my 
hopeless  condition  trite  scriptural  quotations  irri- 
tate me  beyond  endurance.  But  he  was  looking 
out  over  the  valley,  io§t  in  thought  and  apparently 
unmindful  of  me.  And  on  his  face  there  was  an 
expression  of  such  peace,  such  ^rength  and  sin- 
cerity, that  the  angry  thought  died  within  me,  and 
mth  streaming  eyes,  scarce  knowing  what  I  did,  I 
held  out  my  arms  to  him  in  agonized  appeal  and 
cried,  ''0  help  me,  for  I  am  dying!" 

The  day  is  darkening  into  night,  and  the  round 
white  moon  that  peers  into  my  open  window  is 
dropping  its  silvery  beams  in  my^ic  dance  upon 
the  gli^ening  hills.  In  the  we^rn  sky  a  few  long 
bare  of  glowing  red  ^11  linger  as  memories  of  the 
departed  sun,  and  symbolize  the  feeble  rays  of 
hope  that  yet  glow  within  my  somber  thought 

Whether  I  live  or  whether,  as  I  now  believe, 
the  lengthening  shadows  that  trail  the  setting  sun 
of  life  will  soon  enfold  me,  I  shall  carry  with  me 
to  the  end  the  memory  of  his  compassionate  look 
— a  look  of  such  tenderness,  such  love  and  pity,  as 
I  have  never  before  seen  impressed  upon  the  face 
of  any  human  being.  I  cannot  recall  his  words, 
though  he  talked  to  me  long  and  earneSlly,  for  the 

24 


JEAN    EVARTS 

emotion  that  shook  my  soul  had  seemed  to  dull 
my  hearing.  But  as  he  led  me  back  to  the  house  I 
felt  in  his  presence  the  deep  sympathy,  the  sincere 
desire  to  help  me,  that  my  hungry  heart  had 
yearned  for,  and  I  knew  that  I  had  found  a  friend. 


25 


MAY  12TH 


MAY  12TH 


RENEWED  hope  and  an  unfam- 
iliar sense  of  9xpe<5tancy  filled  my 
tliouglit  as  I  sat  on  the  ledge  this 
morning,  drinking  in  the  glories  of 
the  unfolding  day,  while  hour  by 
hour  the  mounting  sun  revealed 
new  charms  and  fresh  beauty.  Yesterday,  in  the 
stress  of  my  deep  emotion,  I  had  asked  a  stranger 
to  help  me ;  today  my  thought  of  him  was  that  of  a 
friend.  And  I  could  not  curb  a  longing  that  he 
would  come  again,  and  coming,  would  bring  me  a 
message  of  cheer.  Surely,  I  thought,  such  serenity 
and  assurance  as  his,  even  in  the  presence  of 
death,  must  re^  on  conviction,  not  mere  opinion; 
and  the  lively  hope  that  he  has  aroused  within  me 
must  be  the  harbinger  of  something  better  that  is 
close  at  hand. 

Then  he  came — and  it  seemed  that  the  sun 
grew  brighter  and  the  birds  sang  more  joyously 
as  he  sat  down  beside  me.  ''Be  of  good  cheer," 
he  said,  "I  bring  you  tidings  of  great  joy." 

How  often  I  had  heard  these  same  words,  and 
they  had  been  as  sounding  brass  to  my  ears !  But 
when  they  came  from  his  lips,  and  I  saw  again 
that  tender  smile  lighting  up  his  face,  my  heart 
leaped  with  a  happiness  I  have  not  known  since 
childhood,  and  the  sense  of  hopelessness  that  op- 
pressed my  soul  seemed  about  to  lift  and  reveal 
hidden  joys  that  I  had  not  dared  to  dream  were 
ever  meant  for  me. 

Then  I  told  him  of  my  need ;  of  my  struggle  as 
a  poor  ^enographer  in  the  business  world ;  of  my 

29 


THE  DIAKY  OF 

parents'  death;  and  of  my  unhappy  ^rife  with 
poverty  and  sickness,  until  I  had  sunk  beneath 
the  burden  of  ills  and  had  been  sent  here,  through 
the  loving  efforts  of  an  older  si^er,  in  the  vain 
hope  that  the  sunshine  and  pure  mountain  air 
might  restore  me.  It  was  only  the  old,  old  story 
of  God's  mistake  in  the  plan  of  creation — the  same 
miserable  recital  of  lo^  faith,  lost  hope,  utter 
helplessness,  and,  finally,  drifting,  drifting — no 
one  knows  whither — without  chart,  without  com- 
pass—  tossing  upon  the  angry  waves  of  misfor- 
tune that  were  mounting  higher  and  higher,  until 
they  seemed  to  break  againit  the  lowering  clouds 
above ! 

''You  say  there  is  a  God!"  I  cried,  "But  did 
He  create  mankind?  And  if  so,  why  does  He  pun- 
ish us  for  being  as  He  made  us?  There  is  some 
terrible  mi^ake — or  there  is  no  God!" 

Patiently  he  heard  me  through.  Then,  in  a 
voice  whose  low  intensity  seemed  to  bid  the  winds 
and  waves  be  calm,  he  told  me  that  he  had  a  mes- 
sage for  me  that  he  knew  would  meet  my  need.  He 
told  me  that,  if  I  were  willing,  he  would  come  and 
unfold  this  message  to  me  day  by  day,  and  that  he 
would  work  with  me  and  for  me  to  overcome  the 
unhappy  condition  into  which  I  had  fallen. 

I  know  I  did  not  catch  the  meaning  ©f  his 
words;  but  while  he  spoke  my  waiting  heart 
thrilled  with  joy,  and  when  he  had  finished  I  held 
out  my  hand  to  him  in  gratitude.  And  tonight,  as 
I  sit  in  the  quiet  of  my  little  upper  room,  with 
only  the  friendly  chirp  of  the  crickets  or  the  occa- 

30 


JEAN    EVAETS 

sional  hoarse  call  of  a  curious  owl  for  company — 
when  all  Nature  is  so  quiet,  so  still,  that  it  seems 
as  if  a  gentle  hand  had  been  laid  upon  her,  hush- 
ing her  into  silence — I  am  pondering  his  words, 
thankful  that  my  training  in  the  busy  office  in 
my  little  home  town  has  enabled  me  to  take  down 
clearly  and  in  sequence  all  that  he  shall  tell  me, 
that  I  may  read  and  re-read  it  when  I  am  alone. 
Tomorrow  night  I  shall  begin  to  write  his  message 
in  this  diary — this  diary  that  I  began  only  a  few 
short  days  ago,  thinking  that  to  write  it  would 
help  me  bear  the  suspense  of  waiting  for  the 
dreaded  call,  and  keep  my  thought  occupied  until 
it  should  come. 

I  have  felt  so  strong  since  ye^erday,  and 
death  has  not  seemed  so  near.  Tonight  my  spirit 
seems  to  float  on  wings.  Is  it,  I  wonder,  only  the 
iSlimulus  of  renewed  hope  ?  Or  do  I  dare  to  think 
that  the  darkness  is  passing?  Can  it  be — 0  can  it 
be  that  my  cry  has  been  heard — that  God  lives, 
and  that  He  has  come  in  the  presence  of  this  new 
friend  I  Can  it  be  that  I  shall  see  Thy  salvation, 
and  shall  yet  live  to  praise  Thy  name ! 


31 


MAY  13TH 


MAY  13TH 


WAS  waiting  for  him  when  he 
came  this  morning,  my  heart  beat- 
ing high  in  anticipation  of  the 
''glad  tidings"  he  had  said  he 
would  bring  me.  A  new  day  seemed 
to  have  dawned,  and  the  dark 
clouds  behind  which  I  had  believed  the  gateway 
of  death  awaited  me  appeared  to  my  Simulated 
vision  to  be  rolling  away  and  revealing  a  bright- 
ness beyond  that  filled  me  with  gladness  and 
gratitude. 

**  Shall  I  be  cured  I"  I  urged,  when  we  were 
seated.  ' '  Tell  me  quickly,  what  have  you  brought 
me?" 

His  answer  was  given  in  a  single  word,  * '  God. ' ' 
In^antly  a  sense  of  disappointment  blotted 
out  the  bright  pi6lure  before  me,  as  my  thought 
rose  in  rebellion  again^  what  I  feared  was  to  be 
only  a  re^atement  of  the  old  theology  that  I  had 
ca^  aside  years  ago. 

* '  I  think  I  know  what  you  would  say, ' '  he  went 
on  hurriedly,  as  if  he  wished  to  prevent  me  from 
replying.  "I  know  that  you  have  sought  Him, 
and  apparently  in  vain;  I  know  that  you  have 
prayed,  and  your  prayers  have  seemed  to  return 
to  you  unanswered.  You  have  driven  to  do  your 
part,  and  He  has  seemed  to  be  unable  or  unwilling 
to  help  you.  But  your  experience  is  the  common 
lot  of  humanity.  I,  too,  have  passed  through  it, 
and  passing,  have  been  led  into  the  knowledge  of 
God  as  not  only  exiting  and  real,  but  as  the  only 
reality,  and  as  the  'very  present  help'  which  can 

35 


THE  DIARY  OF 

lift  you  out  of  despair,  up  into  a  realization  of 
those  things  which  'eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of 
man.'  If  you  will  put  aside  prejudice  and  human 
opinion,  and  will  patiently  follow  me,  striving  for 
that  receptivity  of  mind  which  a  little  child  holds 
toward  its  teacher,  the  message  will  be  unfolded 
to  you,  and  I  know  your  needs  will  be  met." 

Humbly  I  turned  to  him.  ''Tell  me  of  your 
God,"  I  said;  "I  am  waiting." 

Then,  with  his  thought  apparently  far  away 
from  either  himself  or  me,  he  began. 


The  message  begins  and  ends  with  God.  We 
do  not  know  what  untold  ages  have  passed  since 
man,  looking  off  into  the  depths  of  the  starlit 
heavens,  first  formulated  within  his  thought  the 
question,  "Who  made  this?"  But  we  do  know 
that  no  more  momentous  que.^ion  has  ever  been 
asked,  for  once  propounded,  that  agonizing  search 
for  a  Creator  was  begun  that  has  shaped  the  men- 
tal development  of  humanity.  As  have  been  man's 
beliefs  in  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  God, 
as  have  been  his  concepts  of  God's  nature  and 
attributes,  so  have  been  his  manifestations  of  hap- 
j)iness  or  sorrow,  peace  or  strife,  progress  or 
retrogression. 

As  far  back  as  the  dawn  ot  history  there  were 
great  souls  who  had  caught  the  trutli  of  the  vai^t- 
ness  of  the  universe,  and  who  sang  praises  to  the 

36 


JEAN    EVAETS 

One  who  had  conceived  a  Creation  that  was  in- 
finite in  extent.  Today  the  infinitude  of  the  uni- 
verse is  acknowledged  by  all  thinking  men.  Send 
our  thought  in  whatever  dire6lion  we  will,  it  re- 
turns to  us  again  and  rejjorts  no  limits.  The 
human  mind  staggers  at  its  own  concept  of  the 
profound  depths  of  space.  To  comprehend  the 
diiftances  that  separate  our  planet  from  the  re- 
motest stars  visible  through  the  Wrongest  lenses 
is  a  task  wholly  beyond  the  capacity  of  men's 
minds.  Limits  to  the  universe  are  unthinkable; 
and  that  which  is  unlimited  mu^  be  infinite  in 
extent. 

Reasoning  from  effect  to  cause,  as  the  human 
mind  invariably  does  in  its  attempts  to  establish, 
through  logical  processes,  the  existence  of  a  sole 
creative  power  behind  material  phenomena,  it 
may  be  said  that  a  thing  created  implies  a  creator. 
An  effe6t  is  unthinkable  without  a  cause,  for  these 
are  correlated  terms,  and  do  not  admit  of  dis- 
association.  An  infinite  effe6t  implies  an  infinite 
cause,  and,  therefore,  that  which  called  the  uni- 
verse into  being  must  have  been  infinite.  More- 
over, the  maintenance  of  an  infinite  universe  calls 
for  the  continued  existence  of  its  infinite  cause. 

Another  fa6t  that  is  apparent  in  a  contempla- 
tion of  the  universe  is  that  it  exi^s  in  accordance 
with  laws,  certain  of  which  seem  to  be  more  or 
less  underwood  by  men.  But  the  laws  by  which 
an  infinite  universe  is  maintained  must  themselves 
be  infinite;  and  the  power  that  is  able  to  frame 
infinite  laws,  and  that  can  maintain  the  universe 

37 


THE  DIARY  OF 

through  those  laws,  cannot  be  less  than  infinite 
itself. 

A  power  which  can  create  an  infinite  universe, 
governed  by  infinite  laws,  mu§l  be  omnipotent; 
and  that  which  has  ever  at  any  time  been  omnipo- 
tent can  never  cease  to  be  so.  It  can  never  con- 
tain any  elements  of  discord  or  decay,  for  to  the 
extent  that  it  did  it  would  cease  to  be  omnipotent. 
It  can  not  admit  the  existence  of  any  other  power, 
for  the  same  reason.  The  power,  therefore,  that 
framed  the  universe  and  that  continues  to  main- 
tain it,  mu§l  be  infinite,  omnipotent,  and  perfe6l, 
and  there  can  be  only  one  such  power. 

Whether  we  admit  that  the  universe  shows  de- 
sign or  not,  the  exigence  of  intelligence  mu^  be 
conceded,  for  it  is  manifested  on  the  human  plane, 
and  is  demanded  by  the  admission  that  the  uni- 
verse is  maintained  by  law.  No  unintelligent 
power  could  have  created  a  universe,  even  an  im- 
perfe6t  universe;  and  if  we  admit  that  an  om- 
nipotent creator  is  intelligent  at  all,  we  are  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  creator's  intelligence  is 
likewise  infinite,  that  is,  without  limits,  embracing 
all  knowledge. 

But  intelligence  is  a  mental  quality,  and  in- 
finite intelligence  requires  an  infinite  mentality 
as  its  habitat.  Moreover,  laws  are  mental  things, 
and  are  framed  in  mind.  If,  therefore,  the  creator 
of  this  infinite  universe  possesses  infinite  intelli- 
gence, we  are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
creator  mu.^  be  an  infinite  mentality — in  other 
words,  an  infinite  mind. 

38 


JEAN    EVARTS 

Following  out  these  implications,  and  knowing 
that  on  the  human  plane  the  a6livities  of  mind  are 
manife^ed  in  thoughts  and  ideas,  it  is  impossible 
logically  to  deduce  any  other  conclusion  than  that 
the  universe  is  the  product  of  an  infinite  mental- 
ity, the  result  of  infinite  mental  a6tivity,  and  as 
such  mu^  itself  be  wholly  mental. 

Logically,  then,  on  the  assumption  of  an  in- 
finite universe,  the  creator  muift  be  an  infinite 
mind,  and  mu^  be  omnipotent,  unlimited  in  ex- 
tent, infinitely  intelligent,  and  wholly  perfect,  that 
is,  good.  The  creator  muSl  be  mental,  and  we  our- 
selves and  all  with  which  we  have  to  do  mu§t  be 
on  a  mental  plane. 

We  further  conclude  that  this  creator  mu^  be 
sexless  and  incorporeal.  Being  mind,  the  creator 
is  immaterial.  Since  it  is  infinite  in  extent,  it 
mu!^  be  omnipresent,  and  mu^  include  all  that 
exi^s.  It  mu^,  therefore,  include  its  own  crea- 
tion ;  and  this  creation,  being  the  produ6t  of  men- 
tal activity,  and  being  included  in  infinite  mind, 
muisl  consi^  of  that  which  mind  produces,  namely, 
ideas.  Since  omnipotent  mind  can  never  be  less 
than  omnipotent,  it  is  eternal;  and  that  which  it 
includes,  its  ide-as,  mu^  likewise  be  eternal,  coex- 
i^ent  with  it. 

On  this  basis  the  a6t  of  creation  cannot  be  what 
men  have  so  generally  supposed,  the  calling  into 
existence  of  a  material  universe  from  chaos,  or 
nothingness,  but  mu^  be  the  unfolding  of  existent 
ideas  within  this  unlimited  mind.  On  the  human 
plane  mind  is  expressed  in  and  by  ideas.    So  on 

39 


THE  DIARY  OF 

the  infinite  plane,  the  infinite  mind  manife^s  itself 
in  and  by  its  ideas,  and  the  unfolding  of  these 
ideas  constitutes  the  a6t  of  creation.  An  infinite 
mind,  however,  must  needs  unfold  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  ideas  in  order  to  completely  manifest  and 
express  itself,  and  must  needs  require  an  infinite 
extent  of  time  in  which  to  do  this.  Therefore, 
creation  ^ill  continues,  and  mu^  forever  con- 
tinue, as  the  infinite  mind  forever  unfolds  within 
itself  the  numberless  ideas  that  are  required  to 
express  it. 

Infinite  mind  must  be  infinite  in  variety.  So 
the  ideas  that  express  it  must  vary  from  the  leaSl 
to  the  greater,  from  the  infinitesimal  to  the  in- 
finite, in  magnitude  and  complexity — that  is,  there 
must  be  an  infinite  number  and  variety  of  ideas  in 
infinite  mind.  But  the  greatest  idea  that  can  exist 
within  this  mind  is  the  idea  of  the  mind  itself,  the 
idea  of  the  mind's  own  greatness  and  grandeur. 
This  idea  mu^  of  necessity  include  all  other  ideas, 
since  it  is  the  idea  of  the  complete  mind.  In  other 
words,  this  greatest  idea  of  infinite  mind  mu^  be 
the  exaft  image  and  likeness  of  that  mind.  Ex- 
pressing infinite  mind  in  its  completeness,  its 
qualities  and  attributes,  and  its  infinite  a6tivities, 
this  greatest  idea  may  be  called  the  reflection  of 
infinite  mind. 

The  infinite  creative  mind  bears  the  relation- 
ship, not  merely  of  father,  but  of  '' father- 
mother,"  to  its  creation.  Tliero  is  no  term  in  our 
language  which  will  adequately  express  this  re- 
lationship, and  we  therefore  continue  the  use  of 

40 


JEAN    EVARTS 

masculine  terms  when  referring  to  the  creator. 
The  term  God,  a  derivative  of  the  Saxon  Gut, 
more  nearly  expresses  the  thought  of  the  infinite 
father-mother  as  being  Good,  a  thing  wholly  men- 
tal, A  synonym  of  mind  which  occurs  in  one  of 
the  old  languages  is  the  term  Man.  This  we  will 
use  to  express  the  infinite  idea  of  the  infinite 
creator,  the  image  and  likeness,  the  refle6tion 
of  God. 

We  have  now  begun  to  answer  the  que^ion, 
"What  is  God?  And  in  doing  so  we  have  partly 
developed  the  thought  of  God's  greate^  idea, 
which  we  have  called  Man.  If  our  reasoning  is 
correal,  even  though  it  has  been  from  effe6t  to 
cause,  we  are  ready  to  say  that  God  is  Mind,  in- 
corporeal, omnipotent,  omnipresent,  omniscient, 
and  omnibeneficent,  and  that  He  is  sexless,  not 
solely  Father,  nor  Mother,  but  combining  all  the 
qualities  that  both  of  these  terms  imply.  He  is 
the  only  Cause,  the  only  Creator,  the  only  Sus- 
tainer,  and  the  only  Power. 

Continuing  the  development  of  our  subie6t, 
and  capitalizing  all  terms  that  are  synonymous 
with  the  terms  God  and  His  idea,  Man,  to  distin- 
guish them  from  those  which  refer  to  attributes 
only,  we  may  say  that,  since  God  is  ' '  that  by  which 
all  else  is,"  He  is  the  infinite  Principle  of  every- 
thing that  exi^s.  In  a  sense.  He  is  law,  and  His 
laws  arte  the  only  laws. 

He  is  eternal,  self-exigent,  unchanging — He  is 
infinite  Life. 

41 


THE  DIARY  OF 

He  is  perfe6l  and  harmonious — He  is  infinite 
Truth. 

He  is  omnibeneficent — He  is  infinite  Love. 

He  is  the  substance,  the  heart  and  core  of  all 
that  is.  He  is  the  inmost  and  only  true  nature  of 
the  Creation — He  is  infinite  Soul. 

He  is  unlimited  in  extent,  hence,  omnipresent 
— He  is  infinite  Spirit. 

He  includes  all  intelligence  and  all  power — 
He  is  infinite  Mind. 

He  is  and  includes  all  that  is  real,  permanent, 
and  true — He  is  infinite  Good. 

He  is  Mind,  and  He  is  infinite,  and  He  mani- 
fe^s  and  expresses  Himself  in  an  infinite  number 
and  variety  of  ways.  Therefore,  all  that  exi^s, 
all  that  is  or  can  be,  mu^  be  included  in  God  and 
His  manifesl:ation. 

Since  God  is  Spirit,  the  Creation,  which  is  the 
unfolding  of  His  ideas,  mu^  be  like  Himself  in 
quality,  spiritual,  perfect,  and  eternal.  His  whole 
Creation,  including  Man,  mu^  be  the  expression 
of  His  perfect  Being.  His  ideas  may  be  called 
His  "children,"  and  these  are  countless.  His 
Creation,  including  Man,  is  embraced  in  His 
thought ;  and  the  nature  of  this  thought  is  wholly 
good — "For  I  know  the  thoughts  that  I  think 
towards  you,  saith  the  Lord,  thoughts  of  peace, 
and  not  of  evil,  to  give  you  an  expected  end." 

Since  Man  is  the  idea  of  God's  own  self,  he 
must  be  a  "compound  idea,"  for  he  mu^  embrace 
all  other  ideas  of  infinite  Mind.  He  mu^  be  God's 
image  and  likeness,  landing  for  all  that  mani- 


JEAN    EVARTS 

fe^s  and  refle<5la  Him.  He  mu^  be  Mind's  high- 
er and  greater  idea,  the  offspring  of  God.  He 
may,  therefore,  be  called  the  Son  of  God,  for  he 
manife^s  sonship  in  the  highe^  sense  of  the  term. 
As  God  is,  so  mu^  Man  be  as  His  refle6tion,  hav- 
ing no  power  or  mind  of  his  own,  but  reflecting 
through  manifestation  all  that  God  is  and  con- 
tains. All  of  the  ideas  con^ituting  the  Creation, 
from  the  loweift  to  the  highe^,  are  embraced  in 
Mind,  and  are  included  in  Mind's  thought.  By 
and  through  these  ideas  Mind  expresses  and  mani- 
fe^s  itself.  Therefore,  there  can  be  nothing  apart 
from  or  outside  of  God  and  the  numberless  ideas 
through  which  He  is  manifested. 


''These  thoughts  I  now  leave  with  you,"  said 
my  friend,  as  he  rose  and  prepared  to  go.  *'I  do 
not  give  them  to  you  as  my  own,  for  they  did  not 
originate  with  me,  but  have  come  from  one  to 
whom  I  owe  an  endless  debt  of  gratitude.  The 
thoughts  of  God  as  the  infinite  Father-Mother, 
and  of  the  Creation  as  the  unfolding  of  ideas 
within  infinite  Mind ;  the  development  of  the 
thought  of  God  as  infinite  Principle,  Truth,  Soul, 
have  all  come  from  one  whose  name  I  shall  give 
you,  when  in  our  talks  we  have  led  up  to  it  and  to 
the  revelation  with  which  it  is  associated.  Today 
we  have  used  many  of  the  ideas  that  are  included 
in  this  revelation.  I  want  you  to  know  that  the 
credit  for  their  discovery  is  not  mine,  and  that, 
when  in  the  unfolding  of  this  message  we  have 

43 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAJN  EVARTS 

reached  the  revelation  to  which  these  ideas  be- 
long, we  shall  turn  back  and  properly  place  the 
credit  for  them.  The  truths  that  have  been  given 
to  you  today  doubtless  seem  Grange,  and  difficult 
to  underhand.  But  be  patient;  the  light  of 
under^anding  will  come;  your  que^ions  will  be 
answered,  and  your  doubts  cleared  away." 

Then  he  left  me;  and  with  his  going  the  sun- 
light seemed  to  fade,  and  the  birds  grew  quiet, 
and  as  I  wandered  back  to  the  house  a  great  long- 
ing filled  me. 


4-1 


MAY  14TH 


MAY  14TH 

S  I  sat  at  his  feet  this  morning,  ab- 
sorbed in  his  words,  I  thought  of 
the  Disciples,  sitting  at  the  feet  of 
Jesus  and  listening  so  eagerly  to 
the  Grange  things  he  taught  them, 
things  as  new  to  them  as  this  is  to 
me.  And  I  wondered  if  the  message  that  is  now 
being  unfolded  could  be  like  that  which  the  patient 
Jesus  gave  to  his  wondering  followers,  and,  if  so, 
why  his  name  had  not  been  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  it.  But  I  can  wait.  And  meantime,  I 
have  much  to  think  of  tonight. 


It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  assumption  that 
there  can  be  nothing  apart  from  or  outside  of  God 
and  the  numberless  ideas  through  which  He  is 
manifested  is  diametrically  opposed  to  popular 
belief.  That  the  universe  is  material,  and  man  a 
union  of  mind  and  matter ;  that  God  is  Spirit,  but 
that  He  created  man  out  of  the  duSt  of  the  ground 
and  breathed  the  spirit  of  life  into  him ;  that  man 
subsequently  fell  from  some  high  estate,  and  was 
long  afterward  redeemed  by  a  mighty  sacrifice  of 
God ;  that  sickness  and  misery  are  trials  imposed 
upon  us  by  a  beneficent  Father  to  prepare  us  for 
eternal  happiness ;  and  that  death  is  the  gateway 
to  everlasting  life,  are  the  beliefs  commonly  held, 
in  the  world  today  and  preached  from  our  pulpits 
and  platforms. 

That  such  opinions  break  every  law  of  sane 
and  logical  reasoning,  and  make  a  God  of  infinite 

47 


THE  DIARY  OF 

goodness  responsible  for  the  creation  and  main- 
tenance of  evil,  seems  not  to  have  caused  much 
difficulty  in  the  reasoning  processes  of  men.  Nor 
do  men  seem  to  realize  that  the  effort  to  mingle 
mind  and  matter,  Good  and  evil,  is  as  futile  as  the 
attempt  to  dilute  light  with  darkness,  and  that  the 
confusion  of  thought  resulting  from  the  effort  to 
reconcile  such  opposites  is  responsible  for  the 
woes  of  humanity. 

In  our  ages  of  research  we  have  found  nothing 
in  the  material  view  of  the  universe  that  in  the 
slighted  degree  indicates  its  origin.  Reasoning 
from  suns  to  formless  mi^  simply  pushes  the 
question  farther  away  from  us,  without  even  re- 
motely answering  it.  The  Nebular  Hypothesis — 
given  sufficient  data — may  catalogue  a  series  of 
material  phenomena,  but  it  explains  nothing. 
Mi^s  may  form  into  suns  and  worlds,  through 
countless  periods  of  time — these  may  become  the 
abodes  of  sentient  beings — and  again  may  return 
to  formless  mi^.  The  human  mind  can  say  that 
"the  hour-hand  of  Eternity  has  then  made  an- 
other revolution;"  but  why  it  has  revolved, 
whence  the  planetary  mist  whose  cycles  it  records, 
and  what  the  awful  Power  that  is  thus  expressed 
— no  man  dares  to  say. 

As  an  effe6t,  the  universe  demands  a  cause ; 
and  we  may  assume  that  it  was  created  by  an  ex- 
ternal agency,  or  that  it  is  self-created,  or  that  it 
has  always  existed.  But,  as  Spencer  says,  this 
third  assumption  does  not  carry  us  beyond  the 
cognition  of  its  present  existence,  and  amounts  to 

48 


JEAN    EVARTS 

nothing  more  than  a  re^atement  of  the  problem. 

If  matter  and  mind  exi^l  side  by  side,  and  if 
men's  minds  are  cognizant  of  matter,  we  mu^ 
conclude  that  in  some  way  matter  gets  into  mind. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  seems  to  be  abundant 
evidence  that  mind  likewise  inhabits  matter,  at 
leaist  what  is  known  as  sentient  matter. 

But  if  mind  is  in  matter,  and  matter  in  mind, 
they  musl  be  one  and  the  same  thing,  without  dis- 
tinction as  to  quality.  And  popular  opinion  seems 
to  be  shaping  kself  to  accord  with  this  view.  It 
was  formerly  thought  that  the  atom  was  the  fun- 
damental basis  of  the  ^ru(5lure  of  matter,  the 
atom  being  described  as  a  particle  of  matter  so 
minute  as  to  admit  of  no  further  division.  But 
this  theory  led  directly  to  the  implication  that 
anything  that  did  not  admit  of  further  division 
could  not  consist  of  matter,  and  therefore  mu^  be 
theoretical,  exiting  in  thought  only.  A  material 
object  was  conceived  of  as  consiiting  of  atoms, 
held  together  by  the  law  of  gravitation.  If  this 
were  true,  it  would  remove  so-called  material  ob- 
jects at  once  from  the  domain  of  matter,  for  an 
object  consisting  of  mental  atoms  bound  together 
by  a  mental  adhesive,  the  law  of  gravitation,  could 
itself  be  only  mental,  or  a  thing  of  thought. 

Since  the  human  mind  felt  itself  under  the 
necessity  of  explaining  all  phenomena  on  a  physi- 
cal basis,  a  basis  of  matter,  rather  than  admit  the 
mental  basis  of  all  force  and  aCtivity,  it  was 
obliged  to  infer  the  existence  of  a  medium,  the 
motions  or  vibrations  of  which  would  constitute 

49 


THE  DIARY  OF 

all  motion,  force,  a6tioii,  and  energy.  It  would 
have  been  much  more  natural  and  simple  to  have 
called  it  mind  at  once;  but  the  human  mentality 
has  been  loath  to  develop  its  thought  along  any 
but  ^ri(5lly  material  lines,  and  so  it  called  this 
populated  medium  the  "ether,"  and  assumed  for 
it  properties  that  are  in  the  higlie^  degree  re- 
markable, as  showing  to  what  lengths  the  human 
mind  will  go  in  its  efforts  to  avoid  any  but  ma- 
terial conclusions.  The  ether  mu§l  fill  all  space, 
and  mu^  con^itute  the  basis  of  all  a6tivity,  of  all 
material  phenomena,  of  all  vibratory  action,  as 
light,  heat,  and  radio-a6tivity,  as  well  as  electric- 
ity. But  it  can  have  neither  weight,  shape,  taSte, 
smell,  nor  visibility.  It  can  have  none  of  the  prop- 
erties common  to  matter.  It  cannot  be  perceived 
by  any  of  the  five  physical  senses.  It  mu^  be  ex- 
ceedingly tenuous,  enormously  ela^ic,  and  much 
more  rigid  than  anything  that  we  can  conceive  of. 
Although  filling  all  space,  it  mu^  be  more  rigid 
than  steel,  and  some  millions  of  times  lighter  than 
air.  To  such  traits  is  the  human  mind  driven 
when  it  attempts  to  formulate  a  material  basis  for 
that  which  is  wholly  mental! 

In  the  opinion  of  the  leading  philosophers  to- 
day, matter  is  nothing  more  than  a  form  of  ether 
activity.  The  atom,  in^ead  of  being  an  ultimate, 
non-resolvable  particle,  is  now  regarded  as  the  re- 
sultant of  a  number  of  corpuscles,  or  "electrons," 
the  electrons  being  mere  centers  of  activity  in  the 
ether.  Matter,  then,  becomes  energy,  or  the  result 
of    some    sort    of    aClivity.     Activity    of    what? 

50 


JSAN   EVARTS 

Simply  a6tivity  itself,  or  that  which  Stands  for 
a6tivity  in  the  ether,  the  ether  Still  being  regarded 
as  an  invisible,  intangible,  impalpable,  nnexplain- 
able  thing,  so  subtle  that  it  penetrates  everything, 
and  so  "peculiar"  that  it  is  subject  to  no  known 
laws  of  dynamics.  The  ele6lron,  in  the  words  of 
the  discoverer  of  radio-a6tivity,  "turns  out  to  be 
nothing  more  than  superimposed  layers  of  posi- 
tive and  negative  eledtricity. ' '  So,  then,  the  basis 
of  matter  is  ' '  superimposed  layers  of  positive  and 
negative  electricity."  And  all  that  we  know  of 
the  essential  nature  of  electricity  is  that  it  seems 
to  be  a  manifestation  of  energy- — and  energy  is  in- 
tangible, immaterial,  and  perceived  only  by  its 
effects,  or  manifestations. 

Of  one  thing,  however,  we  are  very  sure — that 
the  activities  of  the  so-called  ether  are  enormously 
greater  than  those  which  we  are  accuStomed  to 
attribute  to  what  is  commonly  called  "matter," 
and  the  greater  part,  the  far  greater  part,  of  this 
activity  is  wholly  unperceived  by  the  physical 
senses,  and  therefore  remains  unknown  to  us.  This 
faCt  should  have  been  a  leading  light  to  those  fair- 
minded  workers  who  were  seeking  the  true  basis 
of  all  phenomena,  especially  to  men  of  such  clear 
thought  as  Tyndall,  who  said,  "The  roots  of  phe- 
nomena are  imbedded  in  a  region  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  senses." 

But  it  may  be  urged  that  a  thing  is  no  less  ma- 
terial because  it  cannot  be  perceived  by  the  five 
physical  senses.  The  greater  part  of  such  vibra- 
tions as  constitute  the  phenomenon  called  light  are 

51 


THE  DIARY  OF 

unperceived  by  the  eye.  To  this  it  may  be  replied 
that  the  character  of  light  waves,  or  vibrations, 
has  never  been  established  as  in  the  slighted  de- 
gree material.  But,  even  on  the  assumption  that 
they  were  as  material  as  the  waves  of  air  that  are 
supposed  to  produce  the  sensations  called  sound, 
how  can  such  waves  be  supposed  to  get  into  the 
mind,  even  granting  that  they  do  penetrate  the  eye 
or  the  material  ear? 

Whatever  the  basis  of  matter,  we  mu^  admit 
that  it  is  comprehensible  to  us  only  through  the 
five  so-called  physical  senses.  We  may  go  even 
farther  and  say  that,  at  least  as  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned, it  ewes  its  existence  to  the  testimony  of 
these  senses.  Through  no  other  medium  than  one 
or  more  of  these  physical  senses  can  we  form  any 
concept  whatever  of  what  we  call  material  sub- 
fstance. 

And  yet,  certain  as  we  are  that  we  can  see  ma- 
terial objects  with  the  eye,  when  we  attempt  to 
explain  the  j)i"ocess  of  cognizing  them  we  are  com- 
pletely baffled. 

Our  concept  of  a  physical  universe  surround- 
ing us  is  due  more  largely  to  the  sense  of  sight 
than  to  any  one  of  the  other  senses.  When  we 
look  at  a  material  object,  light  coming  from  that 
object  is  supposed  to  enter  the  eye  and  cast  an 
image  of  the  obje6t  upon  the  retina,  much  as  a 
picture  is  thrown  upon  the  ground  glass  of  a  cam- 
era. The  little  rods  and  cones,  the  branching  tips 
of  the  optic  nerve  which  pro.je6l  from  the  retina, 
are  set  in  motion  by  the  light  waves,  which  in 


JEAN    EVARTS 

some  way  communicate  their  vibration  to  them. 
This  vibration  is  transmitted  along  the  optic 
nerve  to  a  center  in  the  brain,  and  in  some  un- 
known way  the  mind  becomes  cognizant  of  the  ma- 
terial object  without. 

Many  que^ions  are  pertinent  here.  Is  the 
mind  within  the  brain,  waiting  for  vibrations  that 
will  give  it  information  concerning  the  external 
world?  Or  does  the  mind,  from  some  focal  point 
outside  the  brain,  look  at  these  vibrations  and  then 
translate  them  into  terms  of  things  without  ?  Does 
the  mind  see  first  the  vibrating  nerve  points,  and 
then  form  its  own  opinion  regarding  material  ob- 
je6ts?  Or  do  these  vibrations  in  some  way,  whether 
by  length  of  amplitude  or  rapidity  of  motion,  sug- 
ge§t  a  definite  basis  from  which  the  mind  can  build 
up  its  pi6tures  of  what  the  eye  is  supposed  to  see! 
Does  anything  material  enter  the  eye?  No,  unless 
vibrations,  pure  and  simple,  may  be  called  ma- 
terial. Then  why  does  the  mind  not  rather  look 
at  the  image  on  the  retina,  even  though  it  be  in- 
verted, and  see  a  definite  picture  of  the  obje6l,  in- 
^ead  of  looking  at  vibrations  and  then  forming 
its  concept  from  them?  Or,  better  ^ill,  in^ead  of 
this  clumsy  and  roundabout  way  of  looking  at 
things,  why  does  not  the  mind  look  dire6tly  at  the 
material  object,  and  thus  avoid  this  complex 
process  and  the  uncertain  dependence  upon  such 
a  frail  medium  as  the  material  eye?  In  other 
words,  does  our  awareness  of  obje6ls  depend  upon 
the  vibrations  of  jjieces  of  nerve  tissue,  so  small 
as  to  be  almo!§t  invisible  to  the  unaided  vision?    Is 

53 


THE  DIARY  OF 

the  mind,  of  which  we  boa^  such  wonderful  pow- 
ers, pro^ituted  to  such  a  degree  that  its  knowl- 
edge of  the  outside  world  mu^l  be  brought  to  it 
through  the  waving  of  pieces  of  flesh  I  Yet  that, 
and  ju^  that,  is  what  unthinking  humanity  be- 
lieves today! 

The  same  reasoning  applies  with  equal  force 
to  the  other  physical  senses,  for  it  is  certain  that 
all  we  can  be  sure  of  from  them  is  a  series  of  vi- 
brations. The  physical  sense-teitimony ,  from 
which  we  think  we  get  our  idea  of  an  external 
world,  can  consisl'  of  nothing  more  than  a  lot  of 
disconnected  vibrations;  and  anything  that  the 
mind  may  infer  from  these  vibrations  is  inferred 
without  any  outside  authority  whatsoever.  If  the 
five  physical  senses  give  us  anything  at  all,  they 
give  us  vibrations,  nothing  more. 

Without  some  power  of  reasoning,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  conceive  how  the  mind  could  build  up  con- 
cepts of  material  objects  from  the  mass  of  dis- 
conne6led  vibrations  it  is  supposed  to  receive 
through  the  physical  senses.  If  we  admit  that  the 
mind  does  receive  its  knowledge  of  an  external 
universe  through  these  senses,  we  mu^  likewise 
admit  that  it  possesses  the  power  of  reasoning, 
whether  true  or  false,  and  that  under^anding, 
which  is  in  no  way  dependent  upon  vibrations  or 
sensuous  experience,  fir^'^l  has  to  sort  over  this 
mass  of  vibration-sensations  and  arrange  them,  in 
the  light  of  the  mind's  pa^  experience  or  educa- 
tion, into  the  various  mental  concepts  which  it  is 
pleased  to  call  the  external  universe. 

54 


JEAN    EVAETS 

And  so  it  comes  about  that,  in  the  la§l  analysis, 
the  mind  knows  these  sensations  only  as  mental 
fa6ls,  and  its  sum  total  of  experience,  its  conscious 
exiislence,  becomes  a  series  of  mental  ^ates.  The 
mind  may  think  that  it  is  perceiving  external  ob- 
je6ts,  and  it  may  attribute  to  them  the  qualities  of 
color,  extension,  solidity,  ta^e,  and  sub^ance,  but 
when  it  begins  to  look  for  the  origin  of  these 
things  it  is  driven  back  to  its  own  self.  The  mind 
is  forced  to  admit  that  it  knows  the  contents  of  its 
own  consciousness,  and  nothing  more. 

But  the  contents  of  consciousness  are  thoughts 
and  ideas.  Solid  material  objects  do  not  enter  the 
mind,  but  only  thoughts  and  ideas  regarding  them. 
We  are  therefore  obliged  to  conclude  that,  instead 
of  seeing,  hearing,  and  feeling  real  material  ob- 
jects outside  of  ourselves,  we  are  in  reality  seeing, 
hearing,  and  feeling  our  mental  concepts  of  ob- 
jects— in  other  words,  our  own  thoughts,  ideas, 
and  beliefs.  This  Stupendous  fa6t,  accepted  and 
applied  by  mankind,  will  prove  to  be  the  Archi- 
median  lever  by  which  the  whole  world  will  be 
moved. 


''Enough  for  today,"  said  my  friend,  with  a 
little  laugh.  ' '  The  frown  on  your  forehead  shows 
me  that  your  thought  is  already  more  than  full. 
We  mu^  aim  to  avoid  confusion.  We  concluded 
from  our  reasoning  ye^erday  that  there  could  be 
nothing  apart  from  or  outside  of  God  and  the 
numberless  ideas  through  and  by  which  He  is 

55 


THE  DIAEY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 

manife^ed.  If  this  is  true,  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  matter.  I  have  only  been  reaching  this 
same  conclusion  by  a  somewhat  different  line  of 
reasoning." 

And  with  that  he  left  me. 


56 


MAY  15TH 


MAY  15TH 

Y  brain  was  almo^  burning  with 
que.^ions  and  prote^ls  when  he 
came  this  morning.  But  the  look 
of  sincerity  on  his  face,  and  the 
cahn  assurance  in  his  quiet  man- 
ner and  gentle  greeting  seemed  a 
sufficient  answer  to  them  all  and  left  me  contented 
only  to  sit  and  li^en,  gratefully  breathing  the  air 
of  peace  and  serenity  which  all  Nature  seemed  to 
radiate.  My  prayer  tonight  is  that  I  may  under- 
hand what  he  has  told  me,  and  know  that  it 
is  true. 


In  the  light  of  what  w^as  said  yeiSterday  we  are 
now  prepared  to  accept  the  great  fa6l  that,  to  us, 
consciousness  is  exigence.  Consciousness  may  be 
defined  as  "mental  a6tivity."  And  mental  activ- 
ity is  the  activity  of  thought.  Consciousness  then 
becomes  a  mental  a(5tivity  which  results  in  the  ex- 
ternalization,  or  mental  picturing,  of  thoughts, 
these  thoughts  being  grouped  into  thought- 
objeCls,  or  concepts. 

Our  consciousness  of  things  is  supposed  to 
come  through  the  physical  senses,  and  to  be  the 
direct  result  of  sense -te^imony.  We  see  an  ob- 
je6t,  a  tree,  a  house,  and  we  say  we  at  once  become 
conscious  of  it.  And  so  through  all  our  conscious 
experience  we  interpret  consciousness  in  terms  of 
the  outside  world.  It  seems  never  to  have  occurred 
to  us  to  interpret  the  outside  world  in  terms  of 
consciousness. 

59 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

But  we  have  seen  that  all  we  can  hope  to  get 
from  the  physical  senses  is  a  series  of  vibrations 
in  the  brain.  We  must  either  believe  that  these 
count  for  nothing,  or  else  insult  intelligence  by 
trj-ing  to  believe  that  the  mind  makes  up  its  con- 
cepts, its  mental  pi6lures  of  form,  color,  etc.,  from 
the  vibrations  of  pieces  of  nerve  tissue. 

In  casing  about  for  another  and  higher  ex- 
planation of  mental  a6tivity,  or  consciousness,  we 
have  discovered  the  tremendous  fa(5t  that  we  do 
not  perceive  absolute  truth  through  the  five  so- 
called  physical  senses.  Truth  comes  only  through 
the  under^anding.  The  understanding  is  wholly 
independent  of  sense-testimony,  and  does  not 
judge  according  to  appearances.  If  it  did,  the 
earth  would  Still  be  flat,  the  sun  would  revolve 
about  it  and  sink  each  night  into  the  sea,  the  moon 
would  be  a  disc  a  few  inches  in  diameter,  and  ma- 
terial objects  would  diminish  in  size  as  they  were 
removed  from  the  organ  of  vision.  As  we  know 
from  experience,  sense-teStimony  is  most  unre- 
liable. Were  it  not  for  reason  and  understanding, 
by  which  the  sense  impressions  are  sorted  and 
arranged  and  then  interjjreted,  we  would  be  led 
into  all  sorts  of  unpleasant  experiences,  like  the 
difficulties  a  baby  undergoes  while  developing  its 
reason,  and  which,  while  doing  so,  is  almost  wholly 
at  the  mercy  of  sense-impression.  The  greatest 
things  with  which  we  have  to  do,  love,  truth,  good- 
ness, are  wholly  immaterial,  and  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  physical  senses.  The  truth  of  the 
multiplication  table,  for  example,  is  in  no  way  de- 

60 


JEAN    EVARTS 

pendent  upon  the  te^imony    of    these    so-called 

senses. 

Further,  since  consciousness  is  believed  to  be 
dependent  upon  the  te^imony  of  the  physical 
senses,  and  since  these  senses  do  not  teSlify  of 
truth,  that  is,  of  absolute  truth,  the  resulting  con- 
sciousness mu^  be  made  up  of  errors,  untruths, 
and  therefore  mu^  be  a  false  consciousness,  and 
no  more  a  real  consciousness  than  a  counterfeit 
dollar  is  a  real  dollar. 

Matter,  as  conceived  by  human  beings,  cannot 
get  into  mind.  The  material  tree  that  we  look  at 
never  enters  the  mind.  Instead,  we  are  conscious 
of  a  mental  impression.  We  see  our  thoughts  of 
the  tree — our  thoughts  regarding  the  idea  "tree" 
— and  these  thoughts  combine  to  make  up  within 
the  mind  the  mental  concept  which  we  call  tree. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  we  do  not  see  ex- 
ternal things,  or  things  outside  of  ourselves,  hut 
only  the  thoughts  and  ideas  that  are  within  our 
mentalities.  The  form  we  give  an  obje6l  is  deter- 
mined by  our  own  mental  condition,  that  is,  by  the 
thoughts  within  our  own  mentalities  that  we,  as 
perceiving  minds,  are  looking  at.  Hence,  the  exist- 
ence of  a  world  outside  of  ourselves,  an  ohjeSlive 
tvorld  composed  of  matter,  is  ivholly  inferred  and 
mu§l  he  unreal. 

To  believe  in  the  real  existence  of  matter  is  but 
to  place  undue  emphasis  upon  our  own  mental 
concepts.  It  is  the  unwarranted  attempt  to  make 
an  objedtive  something  of  what  is  but  a  mental 
pidlure.     Material  objects    are    only    obje6tified 

61 


THE  DIARY  OF 

sense-impressions;  and  since  sense-impression  is 
erroneous  and  unreal,  matter  becomes  a  counter- 
feit of  reality,  that  is,  a  counterfeit  of  real  sub- 
stance. Of  what  it  is  the  counterfeit,  our  physical 
senses  cannot  tell  us,  for  they  do  not  te^ify  of 
truth.  Only  a  sense  that  can  perceive  and  testify 
of  absolute  truth  can  declare  this  to  us. 

To  repeat,  our  consciousness,  which  is  our 
existence,  is  a  mental  a6tivity,  the  a6livity  of 
thought.  We  are  alive  to  that  of  which  we  are 
conscious,  to  that  with  which  our  thought  is  a6live. 
We  receive  no  testimony  whatever  from  the  five 
so-called  physical  senses.  The  te^imony  which 
they  are  supposed  to  afford  us  is  but  the  thought 
that  is  present  in  our  mentalities.  We  do  not  see, 
hear,  and  feel  real  things,  but  only  our  thoughts 
or  concepts  of  things.  And  the  forms  and  char- 
aSteriSlics  which  these  concepts  will  assume  de- 
pend upon  the  quality  of  thought  out  of  ivhich 
they  are  constru6ied. 

Matter,  then,  is  the  mind's  interpretation  of 
subt^tance.  In  other  words,  matter  is  the  way 
substance  looks  to  the  human  mentality.  Its  qual- 
ities and  attributes  are  the  qualities  and  attri- 
l)utes  with  which  the  mind  dowers  its  own  con- 
cepts. The  mind  forms  its  thoughts  into  mental 
concepts — or  such  thouglits  form  of  tliemselves 
into  concepts — which  are  then  furidshed  with  var- 
ious qualities,  as  form,  extension,  color,  etc.,  and 
})(;come  yjosited  or  proje^cd  within  the  mind  with 
regard  to  one  another,  and  are  then  called  ma- 
terial objects  seen  in  space.     But  the    space    is 

«2 


JEAN   EVARTS 

wholly  within  the  perceiving  mind,  and  is  as  much 
a  mental  concept  as  the  objects  themselves.  There 
is  no  more  reason  for  assuming  the  existence  of 
external  space,  like  the  commonly  accepted  idea 
of  space,  than  there  is  for  assuming  a  real  space 
in  which  to  dream.  In  our  dreams  we  seem  to 
see  obje6ts  di^ributed  in  space,  and  the  obje6ts 
and  space  appear  very  real  to  us.  We  shall  find 
that  our  waking  concept  of  material  objects  and 
a  space  in  which  they  are  perceived  are  no  more 
real  than  are  our  dreams. 

Everything  thus  reduces  to  a  mental  plane, 
and  man  himself  becomes  wholly  mental.  His 
body,  just  as  material  as  the  tree  which  he  be- 
lieves he  sees,  is,  like  the  tree,  within  his  thought, 
and  is  no  more  his  real  self  than  is  the  tree.  The 
body  that  men  think  they  see  is  their  concept  of 
body,  and  is  wholly  mental.  As  all  objects  within 
the  human  mind  are  made  up  of  thought,  so  the 
body  is  a  thing  of  thought.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  body  is  ' '  an  embodiment  of  conscious  and  un- 
conscious mentality,  the  developed  mortal  thought 
of  selfhood,  the  externalization  of  a  personal 
sense  of  physical  being."  That  it  is  mental  is 
further  shown  by  its  responsiveness  to  thought 
that  is  directed  to  it.  Even  materialises  admit  this 
to  a  degree  when  they  concede  that  the  body  is 
affe(?ted  to  a  very  great  extent  by  the  mind.  How 
can  the  mind  affect  anything  that  does  not  come 
within  its  thought?  And  tvhere  is  its  thought  but 
within  itself? 

63 


THE  DIARY  OF 

The  Ego,  the  ''I,"  is  not  material,  nor  a  union 
of  matter  and  mind,  but  is  wholly  a  mental  thing, 
a  consciousness.  Our  conscious  exigence  is  our 
life,  and  we  live  in  consciousness.  To  say  that  a 
man  may  lose  consciousness  and  ^ill  live,  does 
not  alter  this  as  a  statement  of  truth,  as  will  ap- 
pear as  we  develop  the  thought  of  man  as  mental. 
We  are  conscious  only  of  what  is  within  conscious- 
ness, that  is,  within  ourselves.  But  only  thought 
can  enter  consciousness.  Therefore,  we  are  not 
conscious  of  things,  but  of  thoughts  of  things. 
When  these  thoughts  enter  the  consciousness  they 
build  up  thought-concepts,  or  so-called  ideas,  and 
hence  it  is  that,  in  the  la^  analysis,  we  are  con- 
scious only  of  mental  images,  mental  concepts, 
and  not  real  things.  Again,  therefore,  we  cannot 
resi."?!:  the  conclusion  that  ''the  human  mind  sees, 
hears,  feels,  tastes,  and  smells  only  its  own 
thoughts."  Our  supposed  "outer  world"  is  hut 
our  colleSiion  of  thought-concepts  that  we  hold 
within  us,  within  our  own  consciousness,  or  mind. 

Objects  exi^  for  us,  therefore,  only  as  the 
mind  builds  up  concepts,  or  as  these  concepts 
form  or  are  formed,  within  the  mentality  itself. 
Our  thoughts  are  not  things,  but  they  represent 
our  interpretation  of  things.  The  world  of  things 
can  be  defined  only  on  the  basis  that  it  is  a 
thought-world,  that  is,  that  it  exists  in  our  thought 
only.  A  thought-world  thus  becomes  the  only 
world  that  is  knowable  to  us  at  all.  Instead  of 
knowing  a  real  universe,  we  know  only  our 
thoughts  of  a  universe. 

64 


JExiN   EVARTS 

The  same  conclusion  is  reached  even  on  the 
assumption  that  consciousness  does  depend  upon 
the  evidence  derived  from  the  physical  senses,  for 
we  are  forced  to  admit  that  absolutely  the  only 
knowledge  that  the  five  physical  senses  can  afford 
us  of  the  nature  or  existence  of  a  physical  or  ma- 
terial universe  is  by  means  of  certain  sensations, 
or  nervous  disturbances,  which  the  material  ob- 
3e6ts  that  we  think  exi^  without  us  are  supposed 
to  excite  in  the  brain.  The  mind  is  then  left  to  do 
the  rei^  itself,  for  the  material  process  of  cogni- 
tion ^ops  at  this  point,  and  the  mind,  with  nothing 
but  these  nervous  di^urbances  to  guide  it,  with 
nothing  else  to  indicate  color,  form,  or  any  other 
quality  or  charadteri^ic  of  a  material  objedl,  pro- 
jects, unaided  and  alone,  the  entire  physical 
universe. 

Of  what  does  knowledge  of  a  tree  consi^l  Do 
not  the  thoughts  tliat  one  is  able  to  receive  or  hold 
regarding  a  tree  con^itute  the  sum  total  of  what- 
ever knowledge  or  consciousness  one  can  have  of 
the  tree?  We  know  a  tree  by  a  process  of  thought. 
We  think  the  tree,  that  is,  we  fir^  reduce  it  to 
terms  of  thought.  We  have  the  thought  of  touch- 
ing the  tree.  Then  follow  thoughts  of  hardness, 
of  roughness,  of  impenetrability,  and  all  the 
others  that  combine  to  make  up  a  mental  concept 
of  "tree."  Every  single  quality  that  the  tree  is 
supposed  to  have  is  sugge^ed  by  the  perceiving 
mind,  and  is  the  result  of  experience  or  so-called 
education.  The  thought-tree  is  the  only  tree  that 
the  mind  can  know  or  become  conscious  of.  From 

65 


THE  DIARY  OF 

its  consciousness  of  tree  it  infers  that  a  material 
tree  exists,  outside  of  itself,  as  the  exciting  cause 
of  its  consciousness  or  mental  ^ate  regarding 
the  tree. 

Thus  it  is  that  causation  comes  to  be  thought 
of  as  something  outside.  And  this  belief  is  sup- 
ported by  the  apparent  fa6t  that  the  mental  pic- 
tures with  which  we  have  to  do  seem  to  be  thrust 
upon  us  whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  and  through 
no  choice  of  our  own.  We  seem  to  see  con^antly 
the  same  objects,  the  same  bodies,  the  same  peo- 
ple, etc.,  although  we  mu§t  admit  that  they  are  all 
in  a  ^ate  of  constant,  though  slow,  change.  These 
changes  we  attribute  to  wa§te,  decay,  senility,  etc. 
Every-day  obje6ts  are  so  familiar  to  us  that  they 
come  to  be  regarded  by  us  as  more  or  less  fixed, 
subject,  as  we  say,  only  to  natural  changes  as 
time  goes  on.  We  are  not  supposed  to  be  able  to 
accelerate  or  retard  these  changes  to  any  marked 
or  jjermanent  degree. 

And  yet,  the  human  mind  is  aivaking  to  the 
great  fact  that  the  evidence  before  the  physical 
senses  can  he  changed  in  response  to  a  perma- 
nently changed  thought  regarding  it,  and  often 
changed  very  rapidly.  The  law  that  we  seem  to 
be  slowly  grasping  is,  fir^,  a  permanently  altered 
thought,  and,  second,  a  changed  material  obje61:. 
If  this  holds  true  in  a  single  in^ance,  it  will  hold 
true  for  the  entire  objective  world. 

When  we  underi^tand  that  our  consciousness  is 
our  sense  of  existence,  our  sense  of  being  alive ; 
and  that  obje6ls  and  things  are  proje6led  mental 

66 


JEAN    EVARTS 

images,  mental  concepts  proje6ted  within  the  con- 
sciousness itself,  and  formed  and  made  up  only  of 
thought ;  and  when  we  realize  that  a  permanently 
changed  thought  invariably  results  in  a  changed 
mental  concept,  and  therefore  in  a  change  in  the 
form  or  character  of  the  supposed  material  ob- 
je6t,  we  have  begun  to  grasp  the  significance  of 
the  greatcist  discovery  of  our  age. 

As  Stated  yesterday,  philosophers  are  begin- 
ning to  regard  matter  as  a  phenomenon  of  force. 
But  all  the  knowledge  we  can  have  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  a6tivities  of  force  is  mental.  What  we 
call  the  interplay  of  forces  is  but  a  mental  picture, 
for  if  this  force  which  is  being  regarded  as  the 
obje(5live  world  is  not  thought-force,  we  cannot 
know  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  is  thought -force, 
we  can  understand  it  and  control  it.  This  hypoth- 
esis is  likewise  being  found  to  stand  the  teSt,  and 
we  are  learning  that  we  can  control  the  manifesta- 
tions of  material  thought,  erroneously  called  ma- 
terial obje(5ts  and  material  environment. 

The  entire  course  of  suppositional  a6tivity  of 
material  sense,  the  sense  of  matter  as  substance, 
is  erroneous.  In  its  firSt  Step  it  projects  its  own 
mental  concepts  and  calls  the  pi<Sture  an  objective 
world  of  matter.  Then  it  attempts  to  endow  this 
externalized  picture  with  life  and  intelligence,  be- 
stowing upon  it  its  own  perverted  sense  of  life 
and  intelligence,  and  calling  it  ''matter  perceived 
by  the  mind" — in  total  ignorance  of  the  fa6l  that 
in  all  this  process  it  has  been  viewing  only  its  own 
image,  its  own  energy,  motion,  or  force,  its  own 

67 


THE  DIARY  OF 

thoughts  and  concepts,  even  while  believing  these 
things  to  be  external  to  itself. 

Again,  matter  being  mental,  the  prevailing 
belief  that  life  is  in  matter,  or  that  life  is  within 
a  material  or  fleshly  body,  is  erroneous.  The  body, 
like  all  other  so-called  material  obje6ts,  is  con- 
tained in  consciousness,  and  w^e  no  more  exi^  in 
our  fleshly  bodies  than  we  do  in  the  material  ob- 
je6ts  that  we  think  we  see  about  us.  InSiead  of 
being  in  our  bodies,  our  bodies  are  in  us,  that  is, 
in  consciousness.  When  we  grasp  this  fa6t  we 
begin  to  have  an  enlarged  view  of  mankind,  a 
grander  concept  of  the  real,  spiritual  Man. 

Now  that  we  have  seen  that  the  mental  con- 
cepts which  are  erroneously  supposed  to  con^i- 
tute  an  external  universe  of. matter  are  made  vip 
of  thought,  and  that  the  a6tivity  of  thought  con- 
^itutes  consciousness,  we  are  prepared  to  grasp 
the  tremendous  importance  of  right  thinking. 
Since  consciousness  is  mental  activity,  our  exig- 
ence depends  upon  thought.  True  thought  results 
in  true  consciousness,  and  in  the  formation  of 
mental  concepts  that  are  real  and  perfe6t.  Erron- 
eous thought  results  in  a  false  consciousness, 
whose  mental  concepts  are  unreal,  and  whose  pro- 
je6ted  universe  will  therefore  refle(5t  the  quality  of 
the  thought  producing  it. 


"It  is  of  vital  importance  that  we  should  learn 
to  know  what  real  thought  is,"  he  concluded,  ''and 
to  di^inguish  clearly  between  that  which  is  real 

68 


JEAN    EVARTS 

and  that  which  only  simulates  reality,  for  upon 
the  quality  of  our  thinking  depends  the  quality  of 
consciousness,  and  it  lies  with  us  whether  we  will 
be  conscious  of  health,  abundance,  and  immortal- 
ity, or  of  sickness,  poverty,  and  death." 

For  a  long  time  after  he  had  gone  I  sat  think- 
ing of  these  things ;  and  as  I  pondered  the  mean- 
ing of  his  words  the  light  seemed  to  break  upon 
my  clouded  vision.  Then  I  rose  and  walked  slowly 
back  to  the  house,  like  one  in  a  dream. 


69 


MAY  16TH 


MAY  16TH 


HEN  we  were  again  seated  on  the 
ledge  this  morning,  the  soft  winds 
with  their  fir.^  light  burden  of  per- 
fume from  the  waking  buds  play- 
ing about  us,  the  deep  blue  sky 
cloudless  above,  and  the  sunlight 
so  intense,  so  brilliant,  that  the  colors  of  the  hills 
and  valley  melted  and  fused  into  a  glowing  white, 
it  seemed  to  my  waiting  thought  that  God  muSt 
have  drawn  very  close  to  me  in  these  la^  few 
days, 

'*It  is  but  the  beginning  of  an  acquaintance 
with  Truth,"  said  my  friend,  "which  is  fulfilling 
the  promise  of  that  peace  which  passeth  under- 
handing.  ' ' 

And  as  I  looked  up  into  his  calm  face  with  a 
smile  of  happy  response  to  his,  I  knew  it  mu§t 
be  so. 


In  our  fir^  talk  we  sought  to  deduce  from  the 
premise  of  an  infinite  universe  the  concliision  that 
its  creator  could  not  be  less  than  infinite,  omnipo- 
tent, omnipresent,  omniscient  Mind,  eternal  and 
perfect,  and  that  Man  mu^  be  the  Creator's  great- 
er and  grande^  idea.  His  perfect  image  and  like- 
ness, refle6ting  Him  in  every  attribute  and  char- 
acteristic. Although  we  tried  to  reason  logically 
from  effe6t  back  to  cause,  we  did  so  because  only 
in  this  way  have  men  sought  to  e^ablish  the  ex- 
igence of  God  and  to  determine  His  attributes. 
We  know  that  in  our  every-day  life  we  deal  almo^ 

73 


THE  DIARY  OF 

exclusively  with  phenomena,  appearances,  rather 
than  reality ;  and  men  have  thought  it  only  natural 
to  take  what  data  they  seemed  to  have  at  hand  and 
reason  from  it  back  to  its  origin.  But  you  will 
soon  see  that  this  very  method  of  reasoning  has 
been  responsible  for  much  of  the  confusion  of 
thought  today  regarding  God  and  His  Creation. 
The  message  that  is  being  unfolded  to  you  re- 
verses this  order,  and  starting  with  God  as  Causa- 
tion in  the  wide^  sense,  it  reasons  from  this  major 
premise  to  a  perfe6t  effect,  perfe(?t  Creation,  in- 
cluding perfe6t  Man.  Attempting  to  reason  from 
appearances  back  to  reality  is  much  like  viewing 
a  motion  pi6ture  and,  with  no  knowledge  of  what 
the  picture  stands  for,  trying  to  deduce  from  it  the 
natures  and  chara6teristies  of  the  men  and  w^omen 
whose  shadows  move  before  us  on  the  screen.  And 
yet,  even  with  the  imperfect  method  that  we  have 
employed,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  mankind  could 
have  escaped  the  conclusion  that  the  creator  mu^ 
be  Mind,  and  His  Creation  wholly  mental. 

Yesterday  we  discussed  to  some  extent  the 
popular  belief  in  the  existence  of  matter  and  ma- 
terial man,  and  drew  the  conclusion  that  the  so- 
called  physical  senses  afford  no  testimony  what- 
ever, and  that  the  human  mind  sees,  feels,  hears, 
smells  and  tastes  only  its  own  thoughts,  from 
which  thoughts  it  builds  up  mental  images,  or 
concepts,  which  it  projec'^s  or  posits  within  itself 
with  reference  to  one  another,  calling  them  ma- 
terial objects  perceived  by  the  mind  and  conssti- 
tuting  an  external  universe,  from  which  it,  in  turn, 

74 


JEAN    EVARTS 

believes  it  receives  information  through  the 
medium  of  tlie  five  physical  senses. 

We  saw,  fir^,  that  Man,  being  the  perfect  idea 
of  God,  mu^  be  harmonious  and  eternal,  never 
manifesting  anything  but  what  he  receives  from 
his  Principle,  God.  If  we  accept  this  as  true,  how 
are  we  going  to  account  for  the  material  person- 
ality, called  man,  which  we  seem  to  see  all  about 
us,  sinning,  suffering,  and  dying? 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  human  man,  in- 
^ead  of  being  a  compound  of  mind  and  matter,  is 
really  a  sort  of  mentality,  in  other  words,  a  con- 
sciousness. Since  he  is  mortal,  if  man  is  a  mind 
at  all,  he  is  a  mortal  mind. 

The  opposite  of  that  which  is  real  mu^  be  un- 
real, and  its  exigence  can  only  be  suppositional. 
In  this  way,  every  real  thing  has  its  suppositional 
opposite.  Truth  is  real;  its  suppositional  oppo- 
site is  falsity,  which  is  unreal.  The  genuine  is 
real ;  its  suppositional  opposite  is  the  counterfeit, 
which  is  unreal.  Everything  with  which  we  have 
to  do  in  our  experience  may  be  classified  as  either 
real  or  unreal.  If  life  is  real,  its  opposite,  death, 
is  unreal.  If  joy  is  real,  its  opposite,  sorrow^,  is 
unreal.  If  good  is  real,  its  opposite,  evil,  must 
be  unreal. 

The  truth  of  a  mathematical  principle  is  un- 
que^ioned.  When  intelligently  applied  to  a  prob- 
lem the  correct  solution  w^ill  be  obtained.  Incor- 
rectly applied,  errors  result.  Can  we  say  that  the 
errors  we  make  in  solving  mathematical  problems 
are  real?    Spencer  says  that  the  te^  of  reality  is 

75 


THE  DIARY  OF 

permanence.  What  becomes  of  the  errors  when 
we  corre6lly  apply  the  mathematical  principle? 
There  is  no  question  of  the  permanence  of  the 
principle;  it  is  eternal,  immortal.  The  truth  of 
the  Multiplication  Table  is  everla^ing.  Nothing 
can  change  it  or  affe6t  it  in  any  way.  But  can  we 
say  that  the  errors  we  make  in  adding  a  column 
of  figures  are  permanent?  And  if  not,  are  they 
in  any  sense  real? 

The  musician  knows  that  as  long  as  he  cor- 
rectly applies  the  principles  of  harmony  he  will 
make  no  discords.  But  he  likewise  knows  that  the 
sKghte^  deviation  from  these  principles  will  re- 
sult in  that  which  is  the  opposite  of  music.  The 
principles  are  immortal;  the  discords  la§t  only 
until  they  are  corrected  by  a  right  application  of 
the  principles  of  music. 

The  same  holds  for  every  art,  and,  indeed,  for 
everything  with  which  we  have  to  do.  There  are 
principles  which  muSt  be  applied,  and  applied  in- 
telligently, if  we  would  bring  out  harmony  and 
correct  solutions  in  our  work.  No  engineer  with- 
out correctly  applying  certain  principles  could 
build  a  bridge.  No  sculptor  in  defiance  of  prin- 
ciples could  produce  a  work  of  art.  In  every  case, 
the  principles  are  permanent  and  eternal,  and  the 
errors  are  transitory,  disappearing  when  the  prin- 
ciples are  known  and  corre6tly  applied. 

A  counterfeit  dollar,  however  much  it  may 
simulate  the  shape  and  appearance  of  the  reality, 
is  never  a  dollar.  Ignorance  regarding  its  com- 
position may  cause  mi^.akes  and  trouble,  but  the 

76 


JEAN    EVARTS 

counterfeit  will  remain  such  until  it  is  a6tually 
made  over  according  to  the  principles  by  which 
real  dollars  are  con^ru<5led. 

Moreover,  truth  and  error  never  combine. 
Opposites  never  unite.  Light  and  darkness  never 
mingle.  Furthermore,  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
to  really  know  error.  AVe  can  know  that  2-{-2=4, 
but  we  cannot  know  that  the  same  sum  makes  5 
or  9.  Nothing  can  be  known  definitely  except  as 
it  is  explained  by  the  principle  which  governs  it. 
Nothing  could  be  known  about  music,  art,  mathe- 
matics, engineering,  or  anything  else,  were  there 
no  fixed  principles  on  which  these  things  are 
based.  Now  on  what  principle  is  an  error  based, 
whether  that  error  be  in  the  solution  of  a  mathe- 
matical or  a  life  problem? 

We  have  deduced,  at  leaSl  as  a  working  hypoth- 
esis, the  conclusion  that  the  Creator  is  infinite, 
that  He  is  Mind,  and  that  there  can  be  nothing 
apart  from  Him.  This  Mind  we  have  called  God. 
Accepting  this  as  a  ^atement  of  Principle  by 
which  to  work  out  the  problem  of  life,  we  shall 
have  to  assume  this  Mind  to  be  real,  and  its  oppo- 
site to  be  unreal,  suppositional,  transitory,  and 
therefore  mortal.  We  will  call  this  opposite  of 
Mind  ''mortal  mind,"  and  will  include  under  that 
head  all  that  is  opposed  to  and  unlike  infinite 
Mind,  or  God.  The  term  ''mortal  mind"  is  one 
used  in  the  ^atement  of  that  revelation  on  which 
these  talks  are  all  based,  and  to  which  we  are  ap- 
proaching.   If  Mind  includes  Life,  Harmony,  and 

77 


THE  DIARY  OF 

all  Good,  then  death,  discord,  and  all  evil  mu§l 
come  under  the  head  of  "mortal  mind." 

Some  very  interesting  conclusions  can  now  be 
deduced,  if  we  logically  follow  out  the  implications 
of  our  Principle.  If  Mind  is  the  cause  and  creator 
of  all  that  exi^s,  its  counterfeit,  mortal  mind, 
mu^  likew^ise  simulate  a  creation,  for  this  coun- 
terfeit mu^  by  its  very  nature  pose  as  a  creative 
principle.  It  mu^  also  simulate  all  the  powers 
and  attributes  of  real  Mind.  The  counterfeit  mu§t 
present  its  man,  the  image  and  likeness  of  itself, 
and  muSl  assume  to  create  a  universe  which  will 
be  the  dire6t  opposite  of  the  spiritual  Universe 
created  by  Mind.  It  is  this  sort  of  man  and  this 
sort  of  universe  that  we  seem  to  see  all  about  us, 
and  that  ive  refer  to  as  human  beings,  or  mortals, 
and  the  physical  universe.  The  material  person- 
ality, called  man,  which  suffers  and  dies,  is  Man's 
counterfeit,  a  creation  of  Mind's  opposite,  mortal 
mind. 

Yet,  though  we  seem  to  see  this  sort  of  man 
and  a  physical  universe  all  about  us,  we  are  in 
reality  looking  only  at  our  own  thoughts  of  this 
kind  of  man  and  universe.  Whatever  we  may 
think  we  see,  if  we  analyze  our  own  mental  activ- 
ity we  shall  be  forced  to  admit  that,  after  all,  we 
are  viewing,  not  Man,  not  the  Universe,  but  ma- 
terial thoughts  regarding  them.  We  are  conscious 
of  these  thoughts  as  externalized  mental  pictures 
or  concepts. 

AVe  have  seen  that  man  is  a  consciousness,  and 
tliat  consciousness  is  mental  activity,  the  activity 

78 


JEAN    EVARTS 

of  thought.  Thought,  moreover,  is  the  activity  of 
intelligence.  Intelligence  is  based  on  knowledge, 
and  both  knowledge  and  intelligence  are  purely 
mental  qualities.  If,  therefore,  that  thought  whose 
activity  constitutes  a  consciousness  is  based  on 
real  knowledge,  the  thought  is  real,  and  conse- 
quently the  consciousness  is  real.  If,  however, 
the  thought  is  based  on  supposition  or  specula- 
tion, and  not  on  real  knowledge,  the  consciousness 
mu^  be  a  speculative,  supposititious,  erroneous 
con^^ciousness. 

The  human  consciousness  builds  up  its  mental 
concepts  out  of  thoughts  of  matter,  and  then  falls 
into  the  error  of  regarding  these  mental  obje6ts 
as  real  substance  existing  in  a  world  outside  of 
itself.  Its  fir^  error  is  the  acceptance  of  the 
thought  of  a  power  opposed  to  Good  and  as  real 
as  Good.  Once  Parted  with  this  erroneous  prem- 
ise, every  conclusion  based  thereon  will  be  false. 
It  attempts  to  accept  the  thought  that  Spirit  is 
infinite,  while  at  the  same  time  trying  to  reconcile 
it  to  the  diametrically  opposite  thought  of  matter 
as  real  substance.  It  accepts  the  thought  that  it 
is  itself  a  man,  and  that  as  such  it  consi^s  of  a 
mind  in  a  material  body,  and  it  attempts  to  prove 
this  by  exhibiting  the  lifeless  body  of  a  man  who 
has  passed  through  the  experience  called  death. 
It  accepts  the  thought  of  sentient  matter,  of  mat- 
ter possessing  both  life  and  sensation,  and  to 
prove  this  it  will  ask  you  to  take  up  heated  iron, 
or  plunge  the  hand  into  boiling  water.  It  believes 
that  the  continuance  of  life  depends  upon  success- 

79 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

fully  combating  the  evil  powers  about  it  that  are 
continually  working  its  de^ru6tion.  It  believes 
that  germs  and  microbes  seize  it,  and  if  not  ex- 
pelled by  drugs  or  natural  processes,  will  deprive 
it  of  life.  It  is  filled  with  thoughts  of  fear,  of  suf- 
fering, of  strife,  mixed  with  thoughts  of  animal 
pleasures,  mingled  good  and  evil,  longing  for  the 
real,  complicated  with  di§lru^,  doubt,  some  gleams 
of  truth — withal,  a  truly  remarkable  combination, 
so  complex  that  its  various  parts  soon  cease  to 
coordinate,  and  its  aiSlivity  slops  in  what  it  calls 
death.  Yet  it  believes  that  its  thought  will  be 
stirred  into  new  a6livity  after  death,  and  that  its 
being  will  then  be  perpetuated.  What  this  con- 
sciousness holds  as  knowledge  is  but  little  more 
than  belief  and  speculation.  It  brings  out  the 
fruits  of  such  beliefs  in  discord,  decay,  and  final 
dissolution. 

We  may  define  as  the  ''communal  mortal 
mind"  that  suppositional  opposite  and  counter- 
feit of  real  Mind.  The  children  of  this  communal 
mortal  mind  are  what  the  world  knows  as  men, 
mankind,  a  kind  of  man. 

The  children  of  Mind,  God,  are  the  images  and 
likenesses  of  Himself. 

The  sort  of  ideas  by  which  the  communal  mor- 
tal mind  expresses  itself  compose  the  material 
universe  and  all  that  it  is  supposed  to  include. 

The  ideas  by  which  the  divine  Mind  expresses 
itself  compose  the  real  spiritual  Universe  and 
Man,  the  reality  which  lies  back  of  what  we  seem 
to  see. 

80 


JEAN    EVARTS 

The  communal  mortal  mind  is  false,  discord- 
ant, and  mortal,  and  will  pass  away.  Its  children, 
men,  refle6l  its  discord  and  mortality,  and  mu§t 
likewise  pass  away. 

The  divine  Mind  is  eternal  and  harmonious. 
Its  children,  like  itself,  are  perfe6l  and  eternal. 

A  mortal  is  the  produ6l  of  mortal  thought  or 
belief.  Being  mortal,  it  is  but  a  temporary  asso- 
ciation of  erroneous  views.  Mortal  minds,  the 
minds  called  men,  are  material  concepts  of  men. 
They  are  the  results  of  the  human  mind's  inter- 
pretation of  the  idea  ''Man."  Mortal  mind,  human 
consciousness,  is  the  consciousness  of  mixed  good 
and  evil,  of  mingled  light  and  darkness.  It  is  the 
result  of  the  effort  to  combine  opposites  which 
cannot  mingle.  The  material  universe  and  ma- 
terial man  are  formed  in  this  consciousness  out  of 
the  erroneous  thought  therein,  and  are  projedted 
and  placed  in  this  consciousness  with  reference  to 
all  the  other  mental  concepts  that  constitute  its 
universe.  Individual  mortal  minds,  the  likenesses 
of  the  communal  mortal  mind,  which  itself  is  the 
opposite  of  infinite,  divine  Mind,  form  their  own 
mortal,  fleshly  bodies  out  of  the  false  material 
thought  held  within  themselves.  The  mortal  minds 
make  the  laws  that  govern  these  bodies,  and  cause 
the  bodies  to  obey  such  laws.  The  laws  framed  by 
these  mortal  minds  are  called  "laws  of  matter,'* 
''laws  of  hygiene,"  "health  laws,"  etc. 

The  supposititious  human,  mortal  mind  is  by 
nature  self-centered.  Its  nature  is  finite,  inas- 
much as  it  is  the  opposite  of  the  infinite  nature  of 

81 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

divine  Mind.  It  holds  the  belief  that  its  existence 
depends  upon  its  fleshly  body,  the  body  which  it 
has  itself  formed  out  of  its  own  thought.  It  be- 
lieves that  it  is  in  con^ant  peril  le^  disaster  over- 
take this  body ;  and  this  fear  becomes  manif e^ed 
on  the  body  in  sickness,  decay,  accidents,  old  age, 
and  death.  It  holds  the  belief  that  there  are  minds 
many,  other  human  minds  like  itself,  each  having 
a  separate  existence,  and  each  likewise  dependent 
upon  a  fleshly  body  for  life  and  happiness.  More- 
over, it  believes  that  these  minds  can  do  one  an- 
other mortal  injury,  and  that  it  can  itself  be  de- 
prived by  its  fellow-minds  of  all  that  it  needs  for 
its  maintenance.  It  holds  the  correlated  belief  that 
it  can  improve  its  own  ^atus  at  the  expense  of 
these  other  minds,  and  its  short  career  is  largely 
devoted  to  devising  schemes  for  doing  this. 
It  declares  that  its  life  depends  upon  the  body, 
upon  a  mental  concept  that  is  itself  wholly  erron- 
eous, and  that  cannot  maintain  even  its  own  sup- 
positional exigence.  It  makes  this  body,  this  mere 
thing  of  thought,  its  dependence  in  normal  living, 
and  the  cause  of  laoSt  of  its  pleasures  and  ills.  It 
refle(5ts  its  fears  to  this  body,  and  they  become 
manifested  there  in  disease.  The  body  finally 
sinks  under  the  unwarranted  burden  thus  put 
upon  it,  and  ultimately  goes  out  in  what  mortals 
call  death.  The  mind,  finding  that  it  cannot  sus- 
tain its  mental  concept  of  body,  believes  that  it 
dies  when  the  body  gives  out,  and  its  simulated 
activity  then  ceases  and  consciousness  comes  to  an 
end.     The  thoughts  forming  the  body  disperse, 

82 


JEAN    EVARTS 

and  the  body  decays,  disintegrates,  and  is  no  more. 

Since  consciousness  is  the  activity  of  thought, 
and  mortals  are  conscious  of  the  mental  images 
which  thought  builds  up  within  them,  we  muSl 
conclude  that  upon  the  quality  of  thought  entering 
the  human  consciousness  depend  all  the  phenom- 
ena of  life  and  efivironment  which  the  mortal  ex- 
periences. True  thought,  based  on  real  knowledge, 
builds  up  true  mental  concepts,  that  is,  concepts 
of  Truth,  and  therefore  true  concepts  of  the  real 
Universe  and  Man.  False  thought  does  exactly 
the  opposite.  The  human  consciousness  is  a  self- 
centered  mass  of  erroneous  thought,  actively  en- 
gaged in  building  up  mental  images  and  forming 
and  maintaining  an  environment  in  which  the 
mortal  supposes  himself  to  exiSl.  This  false 
thought  in  the  human  consciousness  forms  into  a 
false  concept  of  man,  and  this  is  the  soul-and-hody 
man,  the  mind-and-matter  man,  ivhich  is  called  a 
human  being,  or  a  mortal. 

True  knowledge  is  based  on  Truth.  Belief  is 
based  on  supposition.  The  mortal  consciousness 
holds  beliefs  of  the  exigence  of  both  good  and 
evil,  and  it  believes  thoroughly  in  the  power  of 
evil.  Indeed,  its  belief  in  the  power  of  evil  is  as 
great,  if  not  greater  than  its  belief  in  the  power 
of  good.  It  seems  to  argue :  ''I  see  e\il  all  about 
me,  as  well  as  good.  Why  should  I  not  believe  in 
the  real  exigence  of  both?"  And  this  it  does  in 
total  ignorance  of  the  stupendous  facl  that  all  that 
it  thinks  it  sees  about  it  is  nothing  7nore  than  the 
externalization  of  its  own  thought  within  itself. 

83 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 

We  are  beginning  to  grasp  the  great  fa6t  that 
no  thought  ever  enters  the  mind  without  at  once 
tending  to  become  manif e^ed  in  some  form,  either 
as  action  or  as  material  object.  This  is  already  so 
familiar  to  us  that  instances  need  not  be  enumer- 
ated. Thoughts  of  sickness  con^antly  held  will  at 
length  show  themselves  on  the  body  in  some  form 
of  disease.  Our  thought  reeling  on  some  other 
person  tends  to  become  manifested  in  that  per- 
son's experience.  Our  thoughts  become  external- 
ized in  our  environment,  in  our  business,  and  in 
every  one  of  the  varied  phenomena  which  go  to 
make  up  what  we  call  human  life.  We  live,  move, 
and  have  our  being  wholly  on  a  mental  plane.  Our 
environment,  our  universe,  no  less  than  ourselves, 
are  things  of  thought,  and  are  absolutely  subjedl 
to  the  thought  that  is  directed  toward  them. 

''And,  finally,"  he  said,  as  he  rose  and  §tood 
for  a  moment  in  the  clear  sunlight,  his  whole  being 
shining,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  with  the  light  of 
Truth,  "remember  that  the  thoughts  you  hold  are 
seeds  that  you  are  planting  within  your  mentality, 
and  that  they  will  bring  forth  fruit  after  their  own 
kind,  according  to  a  law  as  invariable  as  the  law 
which  says  that  the  corn  which  the  farmer  sows 
shall  return  again  to  him  as  corn.  As  is  the  qual- 
ity of  your  thought,  so  will  be  your  health,  your 
environment,  your  entire  conscious  experience." 


84 


MAY  17TH 


MAY  17TH 


Y  mind  was  clouded  and  disturbed 
this  morning,  for  if  what  he  has 
already  told  me  is  true,  only  mor- 
tals experience  sickness  and  sor- 
row. Therefore,  I  am  mortal,  and 
not  a  child  of  God.  But  if  God 
did  not  create  me,  how  did  I  come  into  being? 
This  que^ion  had  surged  back  and  forth  through 
my  thought  ever  since  he  left  me  yeSlerday^  and 
I  knew  that  it  mu^  be  answered  before  I  could 
hear  the  re^  of  his  message. 

While  the  trees  birred  lazily  in  the  morning 
breeze,  and  great  purpling  shadows  drifted  slowly 
across  the  peaceful  valley  below,  he  led  me,  as  I 
think  the  tender  Jesus  mu^  have  led  his  anxious 
followers,  out  of  the  darkness  and  confusion  of 
doubt  into  the  warm  sunlight  of  reality.  How  I 
know  that  his  message  is  true,  I  cannot  tell.  But 
something  within  me  responds  to  it — leaps  out  to 
meet  it — and  I  am  satisfied. 


That  which  is  counterfeit  cannot  exist,  even  as 
such,  unless  the  genuine  fir^  exi^s.  There  mu§t 
be  something  to  counterfeit.  If  a  real  dollar  did 
not  exi^,  there  could  be  no  counterfeit  dollar.  If 
the  real  Man  did  not  exist,  there  could  be  no 
counterfeit  or  '^sort  of  man,"  called  mortal  man. 
If  there  were  no  such  thing  as  real  music,  there 
could  be  no  discord.  The  genuine  must  always 
precede  the  counterfeit. 

87 


THE  DIARY  OF 

The  genuine  is  based  on  Principle.  The  coun- 
terfeit is  always  without  Principle.  There  are  no 
rules  for  making  a  counterfeit  dollar.  The  ap- 
parent power  of  such  a  dollar  depends  upon  its 
being  made  as  nearly  like  the  genuine  as  possible. 
In  the  degree  that  it  simulates  the  form,  appear- 
ance, and  chara6leri§tics  of  the  genuine,  does  its 
power  increase.  But  no  rules,  and  no  principle, 
can  be  formulated  for  making  counterfeit  dollars. 
They  muSt  seem  to  conform  to  the  ^andard  upon 
which  real  dollars  re^,  and  they  depend  entirely 
on  deception  for  their  power. 

If  we  know  a  thing  at  all,  it  is  because  we 
know  the  principle  by  which  it  exi^s,  and  by 
which  alone  it  can  be  explained.  If  we  know  Good, 
it  is  because  we  know  the  Principle  which  ex- 
plains it.  If  we  can  know  evil,  we  mu^  likewise 
know  its  rules,  its  principle,  its  laws. 

If  we  closely  analyze  our  motives  and  result- 
ing condu6l  we  shall  find  that  we  base  everything 
on  our  concept  of  principle.  What  is  this  prin- 
ciple on  which  we  try  to  e^-ablish  our  existence 
and  conscious  experience?  It  is  what  we  under- 
hand to  be  the  Principle  of  Good.  Our  progress 
and  happiness  depend  upon  so  ordering  our  con- 
du6t  that  it  will  conform  to  our  conception  of  the 
Principle  of  Good,  not  of  evil.  We  know  that 
evil  has  no  principle.  It  results  when  we  are 
ignorant  of  Good,  or  when  we  voluntarily  a6t  in 
defiance  of  the  Principle  of  Good.  As  darkness 
is  not  a  thing  of  itself,  but  is  only  the  supposed 
absence  of  light,  so  evil  is  not  a  thing  of  itself, 
88 


JEAN    EVARTS 

but  is  only  the  suppositional  absence  of  Good 
from  the  human  consciousness.  Who  or  what 
says  that  Good  is  absent  from  the  human  con- 
sciousness? The  five  physical  senses.  And  what 
te^imony  do  these  afford?  None  whatever.  The 
human  mind  sees,  feels,  ta^es,  smells,  and  hears 
nothing  but  its  own  mental  concepts  and  thoughts. 
In  other  words,  it  holds  thoughts  of  seeing,  feel- 
ing, taking,  smelling,  and  hearing  things,  and 
this  it  calls  obtaining  evidence  from  the  five  ma- 
terial senses.  The  vibrations  of  pieces  of  nerve 
tissue  would  hardly  be  accepted  as  reliable  testi- 
mony of  anything  in  even  a  human  court. 

Try  as  we  may,  we  cannot  understand  errors 
of  any  kind.  All  we  know  of  them  is  that  they 
result  from  the  incorre6t  application  of  definite 
rules,  or  so-called  principles.  We  know  that  Prin- 
ciple is  eternal,  and  that  any  rules  based  upon  it 
muSt  likewise  be  eternal  and  unaife6ted  by  the 
mistakes  we  may  make  in  trying  to  apply  them. 

We  know,  further,  that  the  Principle  of  Good 
is  universal,  everj^where  present.  The  Binomial 
Theorem  in  mathematics  exiSts  as  truly  in  the 
wilds  of  Africa  as  in  the  classroom.  We  become 
conscious  of  such  a  thing  as  the  Binomial  The- 
orem when  our  thought  becomes  a<5tive  with  re- 
gard to  it,  or  when  thought  of  it  becomes  a6tive 
in  our  mentalities,  and  that  condition  of  con- 
sciousness may  obtain  as  well  in  Africa  as  any- 
where else.  We  knoiv  only  what  enters  our  minds 
and  becomes  active  there.  But  only  thought  can 
enter  our  minds.     And  the  result    of    thought's 

89 


THE  DIARY  OF 

a(5livity  is  consciousness.  Fir^  and  la^,  how- 
ever, we  are  conscious  only  of  thought,  and  the 
thought-images,  or  concepts,  into  which  it  forms. 

Evil  seems  to  have  real  existence,  and  yet  it 
eludes  our  grasp  when  once  we  try  to  define  it. 
It  may  appear  as  discord  in  music,  errors  in 
mathematics  or  as  inharmony  in  life.  But  dis- 
cordant music  ceases  to  be  music,  erroneous  math- 
ematics ceases  to  be  mathematics,  and  inharmon- 
ious life  ceases  to  be  life.  A  false  sense  of  a  thing 
is  not  the  thing  itself.  A  false  sense  of  anything 
is  without  a  principle  or  real  creator.  The  false 
sense  of  life  which  results  in  the  material  concept 
of  man  and  the  universe  is  without  Principle,  and 
there  is,  therefore,  no  basis  upon  which  to  explain 
it,  either  as  to  origin  or  its  seeming  exigence. 
The  activity  of  the  human  consciousness  is  the 
activity  of  the  opposite  of  real  thought.  It  is  the 
counterfeit  of  thought,  for  it  simulates  it  in  every 
respect.  The  human  consciousness,  or  mortal 
mind,  becomes,  therefore,  a  false  consciousness, 
or  mind,  and  is  consequently  neither  real  con- 
sciousness nor  real  mind,  nor  the  real  likeness 
of  these. 

Nor  do  mortals  have  minds  of  their  own,  as 
they  think  they  have.  Each  mortal  or  human 
consciousness  holds  firmly  the  thought  that  it  is 
an  independent  thinker,  and  that  it  can  control 
its  thought  processes  and  think  as  it  pleases.  This 
is  wholly  false,  notwithstanding  that  the  human 
mind  through  its  sense  of  will-power  does  appear 
to  possess  the  ability  to  admit  or  exclude,  to  ac- 

90 


JEAN   EVARTS 

cept  or  reject,  the  thoughts  that  come  to  it — ^in 
other  words,  to  believe  them  to  be  either  real  or 
unreal.  In  any  case,  it  is  a  belief  of  mental  a6tiv- 
ity,  a  simulation  merely  of  the  divine  thought- 
modus,  and  not  real  thinking  nor  real  mental 
activity,  wherein  there  is  no  speculation,  no  belief, 
but  Truth  only,  expressed  in  true  thought.  The 
thoughts  of  the  individual  human  mind  come  to 
it,  and  through  no  initiative  of  its  own,  even 
though  we  concede  to  it  the  faculty  of  placing 
itself  in  a  receptive  attitude  toward  those  things 
in  regard  to  which  it  wishes  to  think,  for  this 
faculty  is  a  supposition,  and  the  initiative  to  think 
along  any  certain  line  comes  into  the  mind  as  a 
thought  of  thinking  along  that  line,  without  the 
exertion  of  any  real  initiative  or  will-power  inher- 
ent in  the  mind  itself.  The  mind  is  supposed  to 
say,  "I  think  about  this,"  when  it  is  doing  no 
thinking  whatever.  The  true  ^atement  would  be, 
"There  is  the  thought  about  this,"  and  that 
thought  may  be  classified  as  real  or  unreal,  de- 
pending upon  its  origin.  For  false  thought  comes 
into  the  human  mind  from  the  mass  of  false 
thought  con^ituting  the  communal  mortal  mind; 
and  this  thought,  and  the  mind  containing  it,  are 
the  antitheses  of  real  thought  and  the  divine 
Mind. 

There  is  no  real  material  tree  outside  of  the 
human  mind  that  a6ts  as  a  Stimulus  to  thought. 
The  process  of  cognizing  a  tree  is  wholly  mental, 
and  follows  immediately  upon  the  entry  into  the 
human  mind  of  thoughts  regarding  ^ '  tree. ' '    This 

91 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

train  of  thought  is  Simulated  by  a  sense-impres- 
sion of  a  real  Idea,  which  is  interpreted  by  the 
human  mentality  as  a  material  tree.  But  the 
^imulus  is  an  idea;  and  the  resulting  process, 
ending  with  the  externalization  within  the  human 
consciousness  of  its  concept  of  this  idea,  and  its 
positing  of  this  externalized  concept  as  a  material 
object,  is,  from  fir§t  to  la§t,  wholly  mental.  We 
have  no  process  whereby  we  can  deliberately 
make  thoughts.  Neither  philosopher,  scientist, 
nor  physician  has  ever  discovered  a  formula 
which  will  produce  them.  They  are  not ' '  secreted 
by  the  brain,"  nor  manufactured  in  the  human 
mentality.  There  is  but  one  source  of  true  thought, 
infinite  Mind — and  but  one  source  of  material 
thought,  the  communal  mortal  mind,  unreal  and 
transitory,  the  supposititious  simulation  of  the 
Infinite. 

Only  in  recent  years  have  men  been  awaking 
to  the  great  fact  that  real  thoughts  are  things, 
even  though  invisible  and  intangible  to  the  five 
physical  senses,  and  that  we  exist  in  a  va^  ocean 
of  thought,  which  surges  in  and  through  our  men- 
talities, and  which,  in  some  mysterious  way,  is 
seized  upon  by  the  human  mind  and  built  up  into 
concepts.  The  fa6t  is,  that  in  reality  it  is  not 
seized  upon  by  the  human  mind  at  all,  but  that 
the  very  activity  of  this  thought  itself  constitutes 
the  human  mentality.  A  self-centered  mass  of 
material  thought,  actively  working  and  building 
up  mental  images,  constitutes  the  human  mind. 
Material  thoughts,  the  thoughts  of  the  human  so- 

92 


JEAN   EVARTS 

called  mind,  are  not  things,  but  are  symbols  or 
interpretations  of  realities  to  this  mind.  All  so- 
called  ''outer  experience"  is  the  fruit  of  thought; 
and  the  seed  always  bears  fruit  after  its  own  kind. 
The  way  the  universe  will  look  to  a  human  being 
depends  upon  what  kind  of  thought  is  building  its 
images.  As  is  the  sense-perception  or  awareness 
of  substance,  mind,  and  life,  so  will  be  the  inter- 
pretation of  these  things  in  the  thought  that  is 
a6tive  in  the  human  consciousness.  The  human 
mentality  receives  a  sense-impression  to  the  ef- 
fe6t  that  such  things  as  substance,  mind,  and  life 
exL^.  It  then  interprets  its  awareness  of  this 
sense-impression,  the  interpretation  being  guided 
very  largely  by  education  and  paift  experience, 
human  opinions,  and  speculation.  The  result  is 
its  universe,  a  proje6tion  of  the  concept  of  exist- 
ence which  it  believes  it  gets  through  the  five 
physical  senses.  If  the  mentality  holds  thoughts 
of  evil,  presently  it  will  see  evil  manifested  in  its 
own  experience  or  environment,  or  perhaps  in 
some  other  person.  In  any  case,  however,  it  is 
seeing  only  the  externalization  of  the  thought 
within  itself.  Men  believe  only  what  they  see; 
and  yet  their  lives  depend  wholly  upon  things 
that  they  do  not  see. 

Are  mortals  fallen  men!  Was  man  originally 
created  perfe6t,  and  did  he  afterwards  sin  and 
fall  from  his  high  eSlatef 

No,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  fallen  man. 
Man,  the  image  and  likeness  of  infinite  Mind,  is, 
in  a  sense,  actually  formed  and  made  up  of  this 

93 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Mind's  thought.  He  is  the  idea  of  divine  Mind, 
and  he  could  no  more  fall  than  could  divine  Mind 
itself.  Man  being  created  perfe(5t,  could  never  be 
less  than  perfe6t  while  divine  Mind  retained  its 
integrity.  If  Man  has  fallen,  it  must  be  that  his 
Principle,  God,  first  fell,  for  Man  is  but  the  image 
and  likeness  of  his  Creator.  If  God  can  fall,  or 
can  manife^  evil,  sin,  sickness,  or  death,  then  Man 
not  only  can,  but  mu§t  do  likewise,  for  we  cannot 
attribute  any  characteristic  or  quality  to  Man  that 
is  not  a  characteristic  or  quality  of  his  Principle, 
divine  Mind.  The  counterfeit  dollar  cannot  be 
called  a  fall-en  dollar.  It  never  was  a  real  dollar. 
Discords  cannot  be  called  fallen  music,  for  they 
never  were  real  music.  That  which  is  real  and 
perfe(5t  uauSt  ever  remain  so.  It  is  only  the  unreal 
and  counterfeit  that  can  change — and  its  very  lack 
of  Principle  requires  that  it  should  change  con- 
stantly, in  order  to  simulate  as  closely  as  possible 
the  real. 

We  have  seen  in  a  measure  what  the  real  Man 
is.  The  mortal  man  is  the  opposite.  We  have  seen 
how  he  originates,  how  he  is  a  counterfeit,  a  bur- 
lesque of  the  real  Man.  Mortal  man  did  not  fall, 
for  he  never  was  perfect.  He  was  not  created  by 
infinite  Mind,  nor  was  the  communal  mortal  mind 
in  which  he  originates  created  by  infinite  Mind. 
This  communal  mortal  mind  is  the  suppositional 
opposite  of  real  Mind,  and  is  therefore  without 
real  existence.  Whatever  existence  it  may  seem 
to  Jiave  is  a  counterfeit,  a  simulation,  of  the  real 
existence  of  divine  Mind. 

94 


JEAN   EVARTS 

Yet,  the  communal  mortal  mind  could  not  have 
even  the  appearance  of  real  exigence  were  it  not 
for  the  real  Mind.  To  underhand  this  we  mu§t 
remember  that  whatever  is  real  manife^s  its 
reality  by  comparison  with  that,  the  reality  or  un- 
reality of  which  we  are  attempting  to  establish. 
The  process  by  which  Truth  e^ablishes  its  claims 
is  simply  a  ''showing  up"  of  the  falsity  of  that 
which  opposes  it.  The  solution  of  even  the  sim- 
plest mathematical  problem  is  the  overcoming  of 
suppositional  error.  Were  it  not  for  Truth,  error 
could  not  be  known,  even  as  such.  We  may  say 
that  the  suppositional,  or  unreal,  is  birred  up,  or 
moved,  by  the  real,  and  it  is  to  this  extent  only 
that  the  real  gives  it  whatever  existence  it  may 
seem  to  have.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  origin  of 
evil  may  seem  to  be  attributed  to  God,  for  without 
the  exigence  of  Grod  there  could  be  no  evil,  and 
therefore  evil  really  owes  its  exigence  to  Him. 
The  shadow  owes  its  exigence  to  the  real  obje(5l; 
and  yet  the  obje6t  cannot  be  held  responsible  for 
having  created  the  shadow.  The  theory  of  "sup- 
positional opposites,"  as  announced  in  the  revela- 
tion up  to  which  we  are  leading,  demands  that 
Good  be  supposed  to  have  an  opposite.  I^"  is  this 
opposite  that  is  called  evil. 

It  muSt  be  remembered  that  in  this  discussion 
we  are  dealing  only  with  mental  things,  and  that 
such  things  cannot  be  regarded  in  the  same  way 
that  we  regard  so-called  material  objects.  We 
may  say  that  a  block  of  wood  has  no  opposite ;  and 
yet,  mentally,  an  opposite  may  be  supposed  or 

95 


THE  DIARY  OF 

predicated  for  every  quality  that  the  block  is 
thought  to  have.  If  the  human  mind  should 
change  its  beliefs  regarding  the  block  of  wood,  and 
should  accept  these  predicated  opposites  as  reali- 
ties, and  should  conform  its  a6lion  to  this  change 
of  thought,  its  whole  conscious  existence  would 
be  altered. 


''The  a6tivity  of  real  thought,'^  he  concluded, 
''constitutes  the  spiritual  consciousness,  which  is 
Man.  Real  thought  is  based  upon  absolute  know- 
ing. There  is,  therefore,  nothing  in  the  world  so 
important,  so  vitally  important  to  us  as  real 
knowledge.  Real  knowledge  is  founded  on  Truth, 
and  is  the  knowledge  of  God  as  supreme  Good. 
The  te^  of  knowledge  is  demon^ration,  a6tual 
proof.  You  can  begin  this  demonstration  at  once, 
by  taking  the  infinitude  of  God  as  your  major 
premise,  and  bending  every  thought  to  it,  gauging 
every  mental  action  by  it  as  the  supreme 
standard." 

For  a  long  time  after  he  had  gone  I  sat  turn- 
ing this  over  in  my  mind.  If  I  am  not  a  child  of 
God,  Good,  I  muSl  be  a  child  of  His  opposite,  evil 
— there  is  no  alternative.  But  evil  has  only  a  sup- 
positional existence,  for  it  is  but  the  externaliza- 
tion  of  evil  thought  held  in  the  human  conscious- 
ness. Then  his  words  of  yeSterday  came  to  me : 
"As  you  think,  so  will  bo  your  conscious  exist- 
ence." And  as  the  sun  sank  behind  the  diStant 
hills  and  the  day  drew  softly  to  a  close,  I  made 

96 


JEAN    EVARTS 

the  resolve  that  henceforth  the  diredlion  of  my 
thought  should  be  upward,  and  that  no  thought 
that  did  not  bear  the  ^amp  of  reality  should  find 
an  entrance  into  my  mind. 


97 


MAY  18TH 


MAY  18TH 


OU  liave  asked  why  it  is,"  he  be- 
gan this  morning,  "that  you  seem 
to  have  two  natures,  one  always 
voicing  good,  the  other  evil." 


This  is  the  familiar  que^ion  of  the  "dual 
nature"  of  man.  We  have  said  that  the  mortal 
man  does  not  think  independently.  Nor  does  the 
real  Man.  For,  if  God  is  infinite  Mind,  Pie  is  the 
only  Mind,  and  therefore  the  only  real  thinker. 
His  mental  a6livity  forms  the  ideas  which  consti- 
tute the  Creation  and  the  real  Man.  It  is  the 
adtivity  of  His  thought  that  con^itutes  the  spirit- 
ual consciousness,  the  consciousness  of  spiritual 
things  only,  a  consciousness  into  which  no  mater- 
iality ever  enters.  Such  a  consciousness  is  real 
Man.  So,  in  a  very  real  sense,  it  is  the  thought 
that  makes  the  man.  This  thought-man  will  ex- 
press varying  degrees  of  exigence,  depending 
upon  how  greatly  his  con^ituent  thought  departs 
from  the  real. 

The  human  personality  is  never  fixed.  Being 
without  Principle,  it  is  without  any  ^andard  to 
which  it  mu^  conform,  and  it  therefore  manife^s 
its  constantly  changing  concept  of  the  real  Man. 
As  its  desires,  hopes,  fears,  and  beliefs  change,  so 
the  personality  of  mortal  man  changes,  bringing 
out  the  fruits  of  its  varying  mental  a6tivity.  The 
human  mind  lives  in  a  world  of  voices,  and  it  is 
constantly  hearing  "mental  suggestions,"  which 
it  classifies  as  either  good  or  bad.    These  it  be- 

101 


THE  DIARY  OF 

lieves  to  come  from  its  dual  nature,  its  higher  and 
lower  selves,  constituting  the  conscious  and  the 
sub-conscious  portions  of  its  mentality.  It  believes 
that  the  sub-conscious  portion  of  the  human  mind 
is  a  Morehouse  of  unlimited  powers,  of  which  it 
can  avail  itself  through  the  exercise  of  the  human 
will.  By  the  exercise  of  this  will  it  has  succeeded 
in  throwing  off  some  of  the  trammels  of  dogma 
and  religious  super^ition;  but  in  its  larger  sense 
of  freedom  resulting  therefrom  it  has  fallen  into 
the  error  of  exalting  the  human  sense  of  mind  and 
the  personal  Ego,  and  is  as  far  from  the  true 
sense  of  Power  as  inherent  in  divine  Mind,  God, 
as  before  it  made  the  discovery  of  its  own  so- 
called  dual  nature.  It  has  only  reyjeated  the  famil- 
iar process  of  exchanging  one  set  of  human  beliefs 
for  another. 

There  is  no  thinking  but  right  thinking.  Any 
mental  process  mu§t  be  based  upon  reality  if  it  is 
to  rise  to  the  standard  of  real  thinking.  The  re- 
sults of  such  mental  process,  or  thinking,  mu^  be 
demonstrable,  for  all  truth  is  susceptible  of  rigid 
proof.  The  mental  processes  of  a  mortal  may  be 
very  complicated,  and  there  may  be  the  thought 
within  his  mentality  that  he  is  doing  very  genuine 
thinking;  and  yet  these  mental  processes  may  not 
con.^itute  real  thought  at  all.  Since  matter  is  the 
opposite  of  Spirit,  it  follows  that  a  series  of  pic- 
tures of  material  things  passing  before  the  mind 
does  not  constitute  thinking,  but  rather  false 
thinking,  or  a  belief  of  thinking.  It  is  no  more 
real  thinking  than  looking  at  moving  pictures  on 

102 


JEAN    EVARTS 

a  screen  is  a  perception  of  reality.  The  human 
mind  that  speculates  and  guesses  is  not  really 
thinking,  however  much  it  may  believe  it  is,  for 
speculation  is  not  based  upon  real  knowledge,  but 
is  the  antipode  of  Truth.  Real  thought  comes 
from  the  one  thinker,  God.  Transitory,  specula- 
tive thought  comes  from  the  suppositional  oppo- 
site of  God,  the  communal  mortal  mind.  As  real 
thought  within  real  consciousness  con^itutes  real 
Man,  so  false  thought  within  false  consciousness 
constitutes  mortal  man.  It  is  therefore  true  that 
as  a  man  thinketh,  so  is  he. 

Am  I  mortal,  or  am  I  immortal?  x\m  I  a  child 
of  God?    If  not,  what  am  I? 

The  answer  depends  upon  which  "  I  ^ '  is  asking 
the  question.  There  is  the  true  "I,"  the  image 
and  likeness  of  infinite  Mind — and  there  is  its 
suppositional  opposite,  the  unreal  "I,"  the  image 
and  likeness  of  Mind's  opposite,  the  communal 
mortal  mind.  The  ^'I"  that  voices  the  thought 
that  it  is  the  son  of  God,  His  spiritual  image  and 
likeness,  the  perfect  refle6tion  of  infinite  Mind,  is 
the  genuine,  which  lies  back  of  and  seems  to  be 
obscured  by  the  *'I"  that  counterfeits  it,  and  that 
voices  the  unreal  thoughts  of  matter,  disease,  and 
evil.  The  real  "I"  is  never  for  a  moment  obscured 
or  clouded,  and  its  seeming  obscuring  is  to  the 
mortal  consciousness  only,  a  consciousness  so 
filled  with  its  own  false  concepts  that  it  cannot  see 
the  reality  that  they  seem  to  counterfeit.  At  times 
the  voice  of  the  real  "I"  is  heard.  At  ether  times 
the  voice  of  the  unreal  "I"  seems  to  be  heard. 

103 


THE  DIARY  OP 

The  real  ^'I"  expresses  itself  in  goodness  and 
love.  The  other  "I"  expresses  itself  in  evil  and 
hatred.  There  is  no  real  "dual  nature"  of  man. 
There  is  only  the  true,  spiritual  nature  of  the  real 
Man,  sharply  distinguished  and  separated  from 
its  suppositional  opposite,  the  mortal  nature  of 
the  human  so-called  man. 

The  human  mind  is  unable  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  the  real  and  the  unreal,  and  it 
concludes  that  it  is  itself  a  mixture  of  good  and 
evil,  of  soul  and  body,  of  mind  and  matter,  capable 
of  the  greater  good,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
capable  of  the  greatest  evil.  Truly,  a  fountain 
sending  forth  both  sweet  and  bitter  water! 

The  mortal  believes  that  he  thinks.  But  if 
God  is  infinite  Mind,  He  mu§l  be  the  only  thinker. 
Therefore,  the  mortal  man's  belief  that  he  thinks 
is  but  a  belief.  There  is  no  independent  thinker 
but  God. 

The  mortal  consciousness,  containing  as  it 
does  the  elements  of  discord  and  decay,  which  are 
the  beliefs  of  those  things,  is  for  that  very  reason 
self-de^ru6tive,  as  is  all  error,  and  sooner  or  later 
mu^  pass  away  in  death.  At  be^,  its  span  of  ex- 
igence is  short,  and  its  activities  during  the  few 
years  of  its  exigence  are  of  little  permanent 
value.  It  cannot  save  itself,  despite  its  boated 
progress  along  material  lines,  nor  can  it  be  saved 
as  mortal  mind.  This  would  be  an  utter  impossi- 
bility. There  are  no  elements  within  mortality 
that  can  prevent  its  own  de^ru^ion.  By  its  very 
nature  it  is  doomed.     The  testimony  which  the 

104 


JEAN    EVARTS 

so-called  senses  are  supposed  to  afford  the  mind, 
and  which  constitutes  the  very  existence  of  the 
mind,  is  yiever  testimony  of  absolute  Truth,  and 
therefore  is  no  testimony  at  all.  Whatever  it  may- 
believe  its  progress  to  be,  the  human  mind,  un- 
aided, is  no  nearer  the  absolute  Truth  of  Being 
today  than  it  was  thousands  of  years  ago.  Men 
are  apparently  no  nearer  a  knowledge  of  the 
Absolute  which  lies  back  of  the  relative,  material 
phenomena  of  this  human  life  than  they  were  at 
the  dawn  of  hi^ory.  Of  effe6t  and  phenomena, 
men  know  much  in  a  seemingly  practical  way ;  of 
absolute  Cause,  nothing.  They  forget  that  in  their 
daily  round  of  exigence  they  are  dealing  almost 
wholly  with  phenomena,  material  appearances, 
shadows,  relative  truths,  and  that  they  are  appar- 
ently no  nearer  eradicating  sickness  and  death 
from  exigence,  no  nearer  reaching  immortality 
and  the  boundless  bliss  which  they  have  always 
sought  in  materiality,  than  they  were  when  the 
mythical  Adam  firSt  attempted  the  dubious  mix- 
ing of  evil  with  good. 

Not  only  is  the  mortal  mind  self-de^ru6live, 
but,  contrary  to  popular  belief,  it  does  not  supply 
one  iota  of  even  that  which  the  material  man 
seems  to  need  for  his  comfort  and  happiness. 
Were  Good,  Truth,  Principle,  suddenly  with- 
drawn, this  seemingly  solid,  material  world  would 
in^antly  collapse  and  vanish  into  nothingness. 
Not  a  single  particle  of  what  men  need  and  really 
desire  is  material,  or  comes  from  mortal  mind,  or 
through  the  five  so-called  physical  senses.    God  is 

iUo 


THE  DIARY  OF 

what  all  men  are  striving  for,  even  though,  they 
think  of  the  end  to  be  attained  as  satisfaction, 
substance,  joy,  comfort,  riches,  happiness,  and 
love.  They  are  seeking  Good,  even  though  their 
poncept  of  Good  and  that  which  gives  real  satis- 
faction may  not  be  the  true  one.  Yet  God  is  Truth, 
He  is  Love,  He  is  Substance,  and  He  is  the  source 
of  all  comfort  and  satisfaction  and  abundance  and 
joy — and  all  of  these  things,  yes,  every  one  of 
them,  is  wholly  mental,  or  a  mental  state.  There 
is  not  one  iota  of  materiality  in  any  one  of  the 
things  that  men  tony  for  and  knoiv  to  he  really 
worth  while.  Ideas  of  Right,  and  Ju^ice,  and 
Good  permeate  everywhere  and  everything,  even 
though  seemingly  obscured  by  false  beliefs  and 
material  thought,  and  w^ithout  them  even  this 
world  of  matter  would  cease  to  be,  for  the  coun- 
terfeit, the  opposite  of  reality,  depends  absolutely 
upon  the  existence  of  the  genuine.  Every  bit  of 
the  bounty  of  Nature,  its  beauty  and  grandeur, 
comes  from  God.  He  is  the  source  of  all  the  mor- 
tal man's  supply;  and  this  supply  comes  not  from 
matter  nor  because  of  it,  hut  in  spite  of  it.  If 
mortals  were  not  at  all  influenced  or  controlled  by 
the  divine  Mind,  they  would  never  manifest,  even 
the  semblance  of  harmony,  but  would  be  continu- 
ally diseased,  starved,  and  frozen,  for  uncon- 
trolled mortal  mind  by  its  very  nature  can  pro- 
duce only  evil.  This  it  mus^t  do,  for  it  is  without 
Principle,  without  any  basis  of  reality  or  Truth. 
In  answer  to  the  question,  How  did  evil  origi- 
nate! we  may  say  that  if  God    is  infinite    Good 

106 


JEAN    EVARTS 

there  can  be  no  evil,  and  the  que^ion  is  answered 
by  this  simple  ^atement  of  fa6l.  But  the  human 
mind  is  not  willing  to  sweep  evil  out  of  exigence 
in  such  a  peremptory  manner.  Yet  the  human 
mind  does  not  recognize  the  implications  in  this 
question  itself,  for  this  question  is  one  of  the  very 
means  whereby  evil  continues  to  deceive  mortals. 
It  assumes  the  real  existence  of  evil;  and  to  un- 
dertake to  answer  it  is,  in  a  measure,  to  assert 
the  reality  of  evil.  If  evil  is  not  real,  this  question 
is  an  assumption  of  the  "somethingness"  of  noth- 
ing, and  is  very  much  like  asking  ' '  who  made  that 
which  does  not  exi^?" 

For  evil  exists  nowhere  but  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness. The  human  mentality  is  its  origin 
and  habitat.  Evil  is  the  sense  of  evil;  it  is  the 
thought  of  evil;  it  is  thought  and  belief  of  the 
existence  of  that  which  is  opposed  to  Good.  Being 
the  opposite  of  Good,  it  is  all  that  denies  the 
goodness  and  allness  of  God.  It  is  a  sense  of  life, 
power,  and  intelligence  in  matter,  or  in  something 
apart  from  God.  It  is  an  imperfect,  false,  dis- 
cordant, mortal,  material,  sinful  sense  of  that 
which  is  in  reality  good,  immortal,  and  perfe6t. 
It  is  a  misinterpretation  of  divine  Mind  and  the 
Ideas  through  and  by  which  this  Mind  is  mani- 
fe^ed.  It  is  a  false  sense  of  God,  the  Universe 
and  Man. 

As  manife^ed  to  mortals,  evil  is  the  dire6t 
result  of  holding  certain  so-called  thoughts  in  the 
human  mentality.  Sin,  sickness,  accident,  dis- 
aster, failure,  decay,  and  death,  as  manifested  in 

107 


THE  DIARY  OF 

the  physical  universe,  are  as  dire(?tly  the  result  of 
such  thoughts  being  held  in  the  human  mentality 
as  4  is  the  result  of  adding  2  and  2.  While  the 
false  concepts  of  God  and  Man  remain  in  the 
human  mentality  they  will  be  externalized  in  hu- 
man experience  in  discord  and  disease  and  death. 
Evil  can  find  no  place  in  real  Being,  for  it  is 
the  opposite  of  that  which  is  real,  or  good.  God, 
who  is  infinite  Good,  cannot  know  or  behold  evil. 
Neither  can  the  real,  spiritual  consciousness, 
which  is  the  true  Man.  It  is  ju^  as  impossible  to 
really  know  evil  as  to  really  know  that  2-}-2=7, 
for  evil  cannot  he  reduced  to  any  principle,  rule, 
or  laiv,  and  there  is  nothing  given  or  known  by 
tvhich  it  can  be  explained  or  understood.  The 
human  mind  holds  the  belief  that  there  is  a  power 
opposed  to  Good,  and  the  result  of  this  belief  held 
within  the  human  mentality  is  the  varied  mani- 
fefitation  within  the  human  consciousness  of  that 
which  is  called  evil.  As  every  creation  or  idea  of 
infinite  Mind  has  its  antipode,  or  counterfeit,  or 
opposite,  in  some  material  belief,  so  evil  is  found 
assuming,  or  seeming  to  assume,  all  the  powers 
and  attributes  of  infinite  Good,  and  posing  in  such 
a  way  that  it  may  be  accepted  as  Good  by  the 
human  mind.  Not  that  evil  has  any  intelligence 
or  power  whatsoever,  for  it  is  without  intelli- 
gence, without  any  power  to  manifest  activity  of 
any  sort.  What  charaSleriSl-ics  it  may  seem  to 
hai}e  are  given  it  by  the  human  mind;  and  it  owes 
its  entire  existence  to  the  human  mentality,  and 
to  nothing  else. 

108 


JEAN   EVARTS 

Since  evil  is  undiredted  by  any  intelligent 
power,  and  therefore  is  never  the  manifestation 
of  a  definite  purpose,  it  is  that  which  * '  happens. ' ' 
And  it  is  thus  that  it  seems  to  be  manifested  to 
the  human  consciousness  as  accident,  failure,  loss, 
sickness,  and  death.  The  basis  of  the  theory  of 
the  dual  nature  of  man  is  the  apparent  conscious- 
ness of  good  and  evil,  of  Spirit  and  matter.  But 
such  a  consciousness  does  not  result  from  true 
knowledge  of  an  actual  dualitj'',  but  is  a  mere 
dream  ^ate  of  mind — a  ^ate  of  not  being  awake 
to  the  Truth.  As  long  as  the  human  mind  con- 
tinues to  hold  thoughts  of  power  apart  from 
divine  Mind,  as  long  as  the  human  mentality  con- 
tinues to  cling  to  thoughts  of  evil,  of  sin,  sickness, 
and  death,  to  thoughts  of  life  in  matter,  and  to  all 
the  brood  of  dark  thought-antipodes  which  infect 
its  consciousness,  ju§t  so  long  will  evil  be  mani- 
fested in  this  consciousness  in  all  its  ugly  guises, 
despite  the  mortal's  cries  to  God  for  help,  despite 
his  appeals  to  doctors  and  preachers,  and  despite 
his  apparent  success  in  ferreting  out  the  microbes 
of  disease  and  concocting  antitoxins  to  de^roy 
them. 

The  prophet  put  his  finger  on  the  difficulty 
ages  ago  when  he  cried,  *■ '  Thy  way  and  thy  doings 
have  procured  these  things  unto  thee!"  For  the 
evil  thoughts  of  men  were  manife^ed  in  such  ter- 
rible ways  that  the  prophet  Isaiah  voiced  it  in 
words  which  have  rung  down  through  the  centur- 
ies:  * '  The  show  of  their  countenance  doth  witness 

109 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 

against  them;  and  they  declare  their  sin  as 
Sodom,  they  hide  it  not!" 

''Hear,  0  earth,"  warned  Jeremiah,  "behold 
I  will  bring  evil  upon  this  people,  even  the  fruit 
of  their  thoughts ! ' ' 

''How  long  shall  thy  vain  thoughts  lodge 
within  thee?"  How  long,  0  human  consciousness, 
for  ju^  so  long  wilt  thou  continue  to  sicken  and 
suffer  and  die ! 


110 


MAY  19TH 


MAY  19TH 


AM  going  to  anticipate  a  queSlion 
this  morning,"  said  my  friend, 
seating  himself  beside  me;  "a 
que^ion  which  I  am  sure  has  been 
sugge^ed  by  our  talk  of  ye^er- 
day.  We  have  said  that  God,  be- 
ing infinite,  mu^  be  all-inclusive.  Nothing  can 
exist  apart  from,  outside  of,  or  beyond  Him.  If 
a  thing  has  exigence  at  all,  it  exists  within  the 
Mind  we  call  God.  We  have  also  said  that  mor- 
tals are  the  produ6l  of  false  beliefs.  How,  then, 
are  we  going  to  reconcile  these  ^atementsl  If 
God  is  all-inclusive,  does  it  not  follow  that  He  in- 
cludes these  beliefs?  False  though  they  may  be, 
they  are  nevertheless  seemingly  mental  things, 
and  as  such  apparently  mu§l  be  included  within 
an  all-embracing  Mind.  In  other  words,  if  God  is 
all,  does  it  not  follow  that  He  includes  mortals, 
and,  therefore,  evil?" 


God  is  all-inclusive,  and  He  includes  all  that  is 
real.  If  mortals  are  real,  they  are  included  within 
infinite  Mind. 

The  :§latement  that  2-|-2=7  is  not  a  Statement 
of  Truth.  Yet,  as  a  mere  ^atement,  even  of  fals- 
ity, it  can  seem  to  exi^  in  my  thought,  and  there- 
fore within  my  mentality.  I  may  seem  to  receive 
this  ^atement  from  some  other  person,  and  to 
that  extent  the  ^atement  may  enter  my  mentality. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  I  see  it  as  a  ^atement 
of  Truth.    The  Statement  is  in  my  thought  simply 

113 


THE  DIARY  OF 

as  a  Statement.  I  do  not  recognize  it  as  fa6t,  for 
I  know  the  fa6t  to  be  that  2+2=4.  Therefore, 
this  erroneous  ^atement,  the  opposite  of  Truth, 
does  not  influence  me.  In  other  words,  as  regards 
this  case,  I  do  not  see  evil,  but  only  the  good.  The 
evil  is  a  supposition,  a  misstatement.  Thousands 
might  believe  that  2+2=7,  but  that  belief  could 
not  affe6t  me,  for  I  know  the  truth.  The  elements 
of  this  entire  case  are  all  present  in  my  mentality, 
but  I  put  them  together  according  to  the  Principle 
of  Addition,  and  so  obtain  the  correct  solution. 
Knowing  the  truth  in  this  case,  it  is  utterly  im- 
possible for  me  to  know  the  error,  its  opposite 
unreality. 

Extending  this  case  indefinitely,  I  may  say 
that  if  my  mentality  were  filled  with  the  truth  re- 
garding all  things,  I  could  never  recognize  error 
of  any  sort. 

Now  God  is  infinite  Mind,  and  is  the  Truth  re- 
garding all  things.  As  the  Creator  of  all  that  is, 
He  not  only  knows  the  truth  about  all  things,  hut 
He  himself  is  the  Truth  regarding  everything 
that  is  or  can  he,  and  so  He  cannot  recognize 
error,  the  opposite  of  Truth,  excepting  to  know 
that  it  is  error,  and,  therefore,  like  mathematical 
errors  in  the  light  of  Principle,  simply  nothing. 
The  statement  that  ''He  is  of  eyes  too  pure  to  be- 
hold evil,"  means  just  this.  Not  that  He  is  so 
pure  that  He  looks  away  from  evil  with  loathing ; 
but  that,  l>eing  infinite  Truth  himself,  Pie  knows 
that  there  can  be  no  opposite  to  himself,  and 
therefore  no  error.     He  does  not  see  error,  even 

114 


JEAN    EVARTS 

as  such,  simply  because  error  has  no  real  exig- 
ence. God  knows  himself,  Truth,  and  He  knows 
that  the  only  claim  of  exigence  that  evil  can  have 
is  the  suppositional  exigence  of  the  exaSt  opposite 
of  Truth.  He  could  not  recognize  evil  as  a  real 
thing,  as  something  having  real  existence,  al- 
though apart  from  Him,  for  that  would  mean  that 
He  was  not  infinite,  and  that  He  mu^  acknowl- 
edge the  existence  of  another  power  than  himself. 
The  exiistence  which  evil  has  is  exa6tly  the  same 
as  the  existence  which  the  ^tement  2-f  2=7  has 
— none  whatever,  a  suppositional  exigence,  de- 
pending upon  ignorance  or  false  belief  for  even 
its  seeming  reality.  Mortals  know  this  fa(5t  to  a 
slight  degree,  for  they  have  many  proofs  that  evil 
has  only  the  power  that  they  are  willing  to  give  it. 
And  as  they  come  into  a  larger  knowledge  of  God 
as  infinite  Truth,  infinite  Good,  they  see  more  and 
more  the  fa6ts  regarding  things,  and  less  and  less 
the  opposite  errors.  As  they  do  this,  the  errors 
disappear. 

Evil  mu^  have  support  for  its  claims  to  exist- 
ence. It  cannot  ^and  alone.  Unless  supported 
by  faith,  it  falls.  The  ^atement  that  2+2=7  does 
not  exist  in  true  thought,  and  to  that  extent  is 
really  unthinkable,  unknowable.  It  depends  for 
acceptance  upon  belief,  and  the  only  existence  it 
can  even  seem  to  have  is  the  existence  that  the 
human  consciousness  has  that  can  hold  this  and 
similar  falsities  as  concepts  of  truth.  As  long  as 
the  human  consciousness  believes  a  thing,  it  is  in- 
fluenced by  that  belief.  As  long  as  mortals  he- 
rn 


THE  DIARY  OF 

lieve  that  things  hurt  them,  they  experience  the 
effects  of  their  beliefs.  To  fear  a  thing  is  to  fall 
into  its  seeming  power.  As  long  as  we  fear  a 
thing,  it  continues  to  hold  us.  As  long  as  we  fear 
disease,  loss,  failure,  and  death,  these  will  come 
upon  us.  They  are  only  the  logical  manifestations 
of  the  thoughts  we  hold.  Even  on  the  material 
plane  of  thought,  it  is  the  fearless  who  succeed. 
Success  is  proportionate  to  a  lack  of  the  sense  of 
limitation.  God  recognizes  no  fear,  no  error,  no 
limitation.    He  is  unlimited. 

Where  is  the  mortal  who  holds  false  beliefs? 
Or  where  are  the  beliefs  that  con^itute  a  mortal 
consciousness? 

If  they  have  any  existence  at  all,  they  are  in 
infinite  Mind.  But  if  they  exi^  there  they  can  do 
so  only  as  realities,  for  God  is  Truth.  A  belief, 
in  order  to  exist  in  infinite  Mind,  muit  cease  to  be 
a  belief,  and  mu^  become  a  fa<5t.  God  does  not 
hold  beliefs;  He  does  not  believe;  He  knows. 

That  which  is  true  is  eternal.  The  real  is  that 
which  endures  forever.  So,  if  mortal  man  is  in 
infinite  Mind,  he  is  eternal,  and  will  endure  for- 
ever. But  to  exi§t  in  perfe6t  Mind,  mortal  man 
would  have  to  be  perfe6l.  He  could  never  mani- 
fe^  anything  that  was  not  real  and  good,  for 
whatever  exi^s  in  infinite  Good  can  only  be  good 
itself. 

But  this  contradi6ts  the  fa(5ls  as  we  seem  to 
see  them.  Mortal  man  is  very  far  from  perfect 
and  eternal.  We  see  him  diseased  and  dying 
everywhere.     He  cannot  exiSl  in  infinite  Good. 

11(5 


JEAN    EVARTS 

And  as  infinite  Good  is  all,  it  logically  follows  that 
the  mortal  man  does  not  exiSl. 

This  seems  to  reason  him  right  out  of  exi^ 
ence,  and  on  our  working  hypothesis  of  the  infini- 
tude of  God,  it  does.  The  exigence  of  mortal  man, 
and  of  all  evil,  and  all  that  is  opposed  to  Good,  is 
a  suppositional,  unreal  exigence,  the  product  of 
thought  that  is  the  opposite  of  real  thought,  and 
therefore  that  is  but  supposition.  To  what  does 
the  mortal  man  seem  real?  To  himself  only.  In 
other  words,  mortal  thought  seems  real  only  to 
the  mortal  thought  that  seems  to  say,  '^I  am 
real."  It  is  the  false  thought  itself  that  expresses 
itself  in  this  way.  And  it  expresses  itself  to  itself 
only. 

We  mu^  remember  that  we  are  dealing  with 
everything  now  on  a  mental  basis,  and  that 
thoughts  are  realities,  real  things,  and  that  it  i« 
possible  in  our  mental  processes  to  suppose  an 
opposite  to  everything  that  is  real.  Therefore, 
every  real  thought,  whatever  that  thought  may 
be,  can  be  supposed  to  admit  of  an  opposite.  The 
thought  being  real,  the  opposite  mu^  be  unreal. 
The  opposite  of  real  thought  is  the  thought 
that  seems  to  say,  '*I,  too,  am  real;  and  there  is 
both  good  and  evil  in  the  world,  and  God  made 
them  both. ' '  When  you  ask  where  such  thoughts 
exi^,  I  can  only  say  that  their  exigence  is  sup- 
positional. They  seem  real  only  to  thought  of 
like  nature  that  is  receptive  to  them.  Unreal 
thought  can  influence  only  thought  that  is  recep- 

117 


THE  DIARY  OF 

tive  to  it,  and  such  thought  mu^  likewise  be  un- 
real, for  Truth  is  never  influenced  by  error. 

God  does  not  recognize  error,  even  as  error. 
He  could  not  recognize  the  ' '  somethingness "  of 
nothing.  And  when  we  say  that  God  does  not 
recognize  evil,  excepting  to  know  that  it  is 
nothing,  we  must  be  sure  we  understand  this  in 
the  right  way.  It  means  that  God  does  not  recog- 
nize error  in  any  way,  for  Truth  cannot  take  cog- 
nizance of  anything  hut  Truth.  And  as  Truth  is 
infinite,  there  can  be  nothing  else  to  take  cogniz- 
ance of.  The  mistake  of  the  ages  has  been  the 
attempt  to  bury  mind  in  matter,  and  to  make 
something  of  evil.  The  mortal  man  insists  that 
evil  has  a  real  entity;  and  he  has  struggled  with 
this  man  of  straw  since  the  heginning  of  things 
material,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  prove  it  to  he  some- 
thing, and  then  to  overcome  it  on  the  hasis  of  its 
proven  reality.  With  equal  success  might  we 
druggie  with  the  shadow  which  a  tree  ca^s  in  the 
sunlight,  in  the  vain  effort  to  prove  it  to  be  some- 
thing real  and  to  reduce  it  to  definite  rules  of 
being,  in  order  that  later  we  might  overcome  it 
and  put  it  out  of  existence.  Evil  will  never  be  re- 
duced to  nothingness  on  the  basis  of  its  being  a 
reality.  A  real  thing  is  forever  real,  and  is  in- 
cluded in  infinite  Mind.  If  we  admit  the  reality 
of  evil,  whether  it  be  in  the  form  of  sin,  sickness, 
or  death,  we  but  waste  our  energies  in  attempts 
to  overcome  it,  for  we  might  just  as  well  attempt 
the  destruction  of  the  truth  of  the  Multiplication 
Table.     Evil  in  the  human  consciousness  will  be 

118 


JEAN    EVARTS 

overcome  only  when  the  nothingness,  the  unreal- 
ity, of  evil  is  recognized. 

The  ^atement  that  2+2=7  is  utterly  opposed 
to  the  truth  that  2+2=4,  and  yet  it  may  seem  to 
have  existence.  These  two  ^atements,  as  mere 
^atements,  may  be  supposed  to  exiSt  in  the  human 
mentality  at  the  same  time.  But  they  cannot  exiSt 
there  as  ^atements  of  Truth.  Being  opposites, 
one  mu§l  be  true  and  the  other  false.  The  human 
mind  will  accept  one  of  these  ^atements  as  true, 
and  the  other  as  false,  and  which  one  will  be  re- 
tained and  which  reje6led  may  depend  upon  the 
human  mind's  previous  training  and  education, 
or  upon  popular  opinion,  belief,  etc.  Yet,  even  if 
the  human  mind  should  accept  as  true  the  ^te- 
ment  that  2+2=7,  this  ^atement  would  ^ill  be 
unreal  and  without  existence,  for  its  suppositional 
existence  depends  entirely  upon  the  himian  men- 
tality that  holds  it ;  and  this  mentality,  by  its  very 
acceptance  of  such  ^atements  as  ^atements  of 
fa6t,  thus  shows  that  it  is  itself  false,  and  there- 
fore that  its  existence  is  unreal.  In  reality,  2+2 
=7  cannot  exiSl  at  all.  Nor  can  such  a  ^atement 
even  be  made.  The  best  we  can  do  is  to  say  that 
the  mere  suppositional  ^atement  of  2+2=7  may 
be  regarded  as  the  antithesis  of  the  fa<5t,  that  2+2 
=4,  for  the  real  Man  could  not  reflect  (Statements 
of  error,  and  the  mortal  man  is  himself  as  false  as 
the  erroneous  ^atement  that  we  are  trying  to 
suppose  him  to  hold. 

It  is  ju^  so,  only  on  a  very  much  larger  and 
more  complex  scale,  with  the  fa(5ls  of  Being.    Be- 

119 


THE  DIARY  OP 

cause  the  mental  processes  by  which  mortal  man 
is  formed  seem  so  complicated,  and  the  realm  of 
thought  is  such  an  unknown  and  unexplored 
region,  we  find  it  difficult  to  accept  these  things. 
Mortal  man  mu^  of  necessity  seem  complicated, 
for  he  is  the  counterfeit  of  the  real  Man,  and  the 
real  man  is  a  reflection  of  infinite  complexity,  a 
complexity  only  in  the  sense  of  including  every- 
thing, from  the  infinitesimal  to  the  infinite,  and 
not  a  complexity  in  the  sense  of  being  confused 
or  discordant.  A  mis^atement  of  the  Truth  of 
Being,  regardless  of  what  form  that  misstate- 
ment may  assume,  is  ju^  as  much  an  error  as  to 
say  that  2-}-2=7.  The  resulting  complexity  of 
error,  however,  seems  greater;  although  we  can- 
not conceive  what  a  complex  result  the  universal 
acceptance  of  the  ^atement  that  2-f  2=7  might 
have.  But  we  do  know  that  if  this  were  accepted, 
the  calculations  of  the  whole  world  would  have  to 
be  changed.  The  results  following  the  world's 
acceptance  of  a  single  error  are  incalculable. 

In  your  dreams  you  are  an  unreal  self  in  an 
unreal  environment.  You  believe  that  things  are 
very  real  while  you  are  dreaming;  but  you  recog- 
nize their  unreality  when  you  wake  to  what  you 
believe  to  be  real  exigence.  What  con^itutes  the 
difference  between  your  dreams  and  your  waking 
exifstence?  Simply  this,  that  your  dreams  are 
wholly  unrelated  to  Principle,  and  are  therefore 
chaotic  and  impossible.  Your  waking  exigence 
would  be  ju^  as  chaotic  and  impossible,  were  it 
not  that  to  a  degree  it  is  related  to  Principle,  God. 

120 


JEAN    EVARTS 

For,  as  Slated  some  time  ago,  it  is  only  the  pres- 
ence of  Principle  in  this  universe  of  mortal  man, 
despite  its  materiality  and  false  beliefs,  that  pre- 
vents it  from  flying  into  nothingness,  ju^  as  your 
dreams  do  when  you  wake.  Everything  in  your 
vaking  experience  that  is  not  related  to  Principle 
is  chaotic  and  unreal,  as  unreal  as  are  your 
dreams.  What  becomes  of  your  dream  when  you 
wake?  The  same  that  happens  to  all  that  is  unreal 
in  our  waking  dream  of  exii^ence  when  we  learn 
the  Truth — it  disappears.  If  it  were  based  on 
Principle,  and  therefore  real,  it  could  not  dis- 
appear. 

When  you  ask,  Who  is  doing  the  supposing 
with  regard  to  exigence?  since  the  mortal  man's 
exillence  is  suppositional,  we  mu^  answer  that 
the  unreal  thought  itself  forms  into  the  que^ion, 
''Who  made  me?"  In  other  words,  this  thought- 
que^ion  comes  into  the  human  mentality  from  the 
source  of  material  thought,  the  communal  mortal 
mind — and  we  know  that  the  communal  mortal 
mind  is  but  a  name  under  which  we  include  all 
the  suppositional  thought-a(5tivity  that  seems  to 
be  the  opposite  of  divine  Mind,  God.  If  there 
comes  into  the  mentality  the  real  thought,  *'God 
made  all  things,"  there  will  very  likely  come  with 
it  its  suppositional  opposite,  unreal  thought, 
namely,  "Who  made  me?"  Remember  that  we 
are  dealing  with  thought,  and  the  centers  of 
thought-a6tivity,  or  mentalities.  Thoughts  come 
into  mentality  from  some  source  without,  and 
they  frame  into  all  possible  sorts  of  ^atements 

121 


THE  DIARY  OF 

and  que^ions.  This  stream  of  mixed  real  and 
suppositional  thought  is  flowing  into  and  through 
our  mentalities  constantly,  and  gives  rise  to  the 
**^ream  of  consciousness"  that  psychologists 
dwell  on  at  such  lengths  in  their  various  text 
books.  Every  real  thought  has  its  suppositional 
opposite,  and  the  human  mind  has  to  he  educated 
to  distinguish  hetiveen  the  real  and  the  unreal. 
Until  it  can  do  so,  it  experiences  a  manifestation 
of  mixed  good  and  evil,  the  degree  of  harmony  in 
which  depends  upon  the  predominance  of  Truth 
or  error  in  the  mentality. 

Keep  these  f a6ts  before  you :  You  are  a  men- 
tality, a  consciousness.  You  are  no  more  in  a 
physical  body  than  you  are  in  any  material  object 
you  may  think  you  see  in  space  about  you.  As  a 
consciousness,  your  life  is  your  conscious  exist- 
ence. It  is  made  up  of  the  things  and  experiences 
you  are  cons<3ious  of.  Consciousness  is  mental 
activity,  the  activity  of  thought.  A  false  con- 
sciousness is  the  result  of  the  a(5tivity  of  false 
thought.  Thoughts  form  into  mental  concepts, 
and  these  concepts  are  arranged  into  forms  and 
positions  in  consciousness  and  become  to  us  our 
environment,  our  universe.  Our  bodies  are  as 
much  mental  concepts  as  the  world  we  think  we 
see  about  us.  The  body  exists  within  the  con- 
sciousness, just  as  do  all  the  objects  with  whicli 
we  think  we  have  to  do  in  our  daily  life.  It  would 
have  no  more  sensation  or  life  than  a  stone,  were 
it  not  that  we  have  come  to  believe  that  our  life 
depends  upon  it  and  is  centered  in  it.     We  are 

122 


JEAN    EVARTS 

neither  in  nor  of  the  body,  any  more  than  we  are 
in  or  of  material  obje6ts  about  us.  The  body  is 
ivithin  the  consciousness ,  and  its  nature  is  en- 
tirely mental. 

Consciousness  that  is  made  up  of  real  thought- 
activity  is  real  consciousness.  Consciousness  that 
is  made  up  of  the  suppositional  activity  of  unreal 
thought  is  unreal  consciousness.  Each  kind  brings 
out  the  fruits  of  its  own  thinking.  The  mortal 
consciousness,  or  man,  is  the  man  referred  to  in 
the  book  of  Isaiah,  where  we  read,  '^  Cease  ye 
from  man  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils,  for 
whereaf  is  he  to  be  accounted?" 

He  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  at  all,  for  he  is 
a  myth. 

The  mortal  man  and  the  physical  universe  are 
supposed  to  be  governed  by  laws,  which  are  called 
**laws  of  matter."  There  is  much  speculation  re- 
garding these  so-called  laws,  and  the  human  mind 
has  spent  much  time  in  their  inve^igation.  Natur- 
ally, it  is  of  great  importance  to  us  that  we  should 
know  whence  they  come;  and  yet,  when  we  at- 
tempt to  discover  their  origin  we  find  ourselves 
lo^  in  the  mi^ts  of  obscurity  that  cloud  the  cen- 
turies. Law  has  been  well  defined  as  ^'the  ulti- 
mate and  final  authority,  able  to  enforce  its  will. ' ' 
But  whose  authority  do  "laws  of  matter"  en- 
force? 

If  we  press  back  along  the  line  of  material 
evolution,  according  to  the  "Darwinian,"  or  De- 
velopment Theory,  we  finally  arrive  at  the  fir^ 
human  being,  w^hom  the  world  knows  as  Adam. 

123 


THE  DIARY  OP 

But  here  we  ^op,  for  the  historicity  of  the  man 
Adam  cannot  be  e^ablished.  According  to  the 
Bible,  he  was  the  offspring  of  God,  but  his  con- 
dnR  resulted  in  alienating  him  from  his  Creator- 
and  we  later  find  him  no  longer  recognized  as 
Buch.  That  infinite  Mind  could  create  anything 
as  imperfect  as  the  man,  Adam,  and  then  ^te 
that  he  had  been  made  in  His  image  and  likeness, 
ia  unthinkable.  Even  more,  from  the  nature  of 
God  as  Good,  it  is  simply  impossible.  We  mu^ 
conclude  that  the  Adam  §tory  is  a  myth,  an  alle- 
gory, a  fable. 

And  here  we  end,  for  here  human  hiltory  is 
supposed  to  find  its  source,  in  the  Adam  ^ory. 
Here  material  man  and  the  laws  that  govern  him 
^art,  in  myth.  A  myth  is  an  unreality,  nothing- 
ness. It  is  unreality,  nothingness,  therefore,  that 
demands  the  mortal's  obedience  to  human  laws  of 
the  body,  or  matter.  But,  disregarding  this  and 
accepting  the  conclusions  of  the  leading  physicists 
of  our  day,  the  so-called  ''laws  of  matter"  can  be 
nothing  more  than  laws  of  ''superimposed  layers 
of  positive  and  negative  electricity."  It  is  such 
laws  that  the  human  consciousness  has  bowed 
down  to  and  accepted  as  the  ' '  final  authority,  able 
to  enforce  its  will." 

Nor  is  all  this  "confusion  worse  confounded," 
for  these  things  that  we  have  been  discussing  are 
all  developments  from  that  revelation  to  which 
we  are  approaching,  and  which,  as  a  revelation  of 
Truth,  is  being  found  to  ^and  the  te^  of  rigid 
demonstration,  in  so  far  as  it  is  under^od  and 

134 


JEAN    EVAETS 

intelligently  applied.  Already  it  has  been  proved 
sufficiently  to  e^ablisli  its  truth  as  a  whole,  and  is 
daily  being  proved  in  some  degree  by  those  who 
have  reached  at  lea;^  a  partial  under^anding  of 
its  infinite  Principle,  and  who  are  loyally  and 
hone^ly  putting  it  to  the  proof. 


*'It  is  as  old  as  the  foundations  of  the  uni- 
verse, ' '  he  said.  * '  The  world  has  known  it  in  part, 
and  forgotten  it  again — juSl  as  it  has  forgotten 
the  spiritual  import  of  Paul's  wonderful  state- 
ment of  Truth :  '  The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love, 
joy,  peace,  longsuffering,  gentleness,  goodness, 
faith,  meekness,  temperance :  against  such  there 
is  no  law. '  As  Truth,  it  has  always  been  present, 
and  in  some  degree  it  has  always  been  recognized. 
But  we  have  had  to  be  reminded  of  it  many  times. 
Tomorrow  we  shall  talk  about  the  greateSl  of 
those  who  have  put  us  in  remembrance  of  these 
things — the  one  who  revealed  God  to  us  as  in- 
finite Love." 


125 


MAY  20TH 


MAY  20TH 

HEN  I  awoke  this  morning  my 
whole  being  sprang  forth  to  meet 
the  day.  I  knew  that  a  change  had 
come  over  me.  The  room  was 
ablaze  with  sunlight,  and  the  cur- 
tains were  waving  a  greeting  to 
me  in  the  cool  spring  breeze  that  came  through 
the  open  window.  Such  sleep,  and  such  a  feeling 
of  Strength  and  life,  I  had  not  known  since  child- 
hood! I  could  scarcely  wait  for  breakfa^,  so 
eager  was  I  to  get  out  into  the  glorious  morning, 
to  join  with  the  birds  in  their  songs  of  happiness, 
and  to  revel  in  the  wonderful  life  and  gladness 
that  was  all  about  me.  I  almo^  flew  to  the  ledge, 
for  I  wanted  to  be  there  to  greet  him  when  he 
came.  I  did  not  know  I  had  such  ^rength !  The 
old  pain  and  weariness  seemed  to  have  lifted  and 
left  me  young  again,  I  felt  as  if  for  years  I  had 
been  in  a  dream. 

Then  something  began  to  dawn  upon  my 
wakened  thought.  The  cough — I  wondered  that 
I  had  not  missed  it.  But  surely  it  was  gone — had 
been  gone  for  days !  And  my  renewed  Strength, 
my  new  sense  of  life — these  had  Stolen  in  so 
quietly  upon  my  absorbed  thought,  and  the  old 
discords  had  faded  away  so  gradually,  that  I  had 
only  now  become  conscious  of  a  change  that  muSt 
have  been  going  on  within  me  ever  since  my  new 
friend  began,  as  he  said,  to  work  with  and  for  me, 
and  to  unfold  his  beautiful  message  of  life  and 
health!  My  soul  seemed  burSling  with  joy,  with 
love,  with  an  inexpressible  song  of  gratitude ! 

129 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Then  I  saw  him  coming  slowly  along  the  path 
beneath  me,  stopping  now  and  then  to  look  at  a 
flower,  or  to  pick  up  a  bright  pebble,  his  hat  off 
and  his  coat  thrown  over  his  arm,  his  whole  being 
aglow  with  health  and  happiness  and  the  joy  of 
living.  I  could  not  wait  for  him.  With  an  im- 
pulse that  I  did  not  try  to  retrain,  I  rushed  down 
the  pathway  and  almo^  threw  myself  into  his 
arms. 

' '  Look  at  me ! "  I  cried,  * '  I  am  well  again — you 
— you — ! ' ' 

I  topped  for  sheer  want  of  breath.  And  then 
I  felt  my  face  grow  hot  with  embarrassment,  and 
I  Stammered  out  an  apology  for  my  impulsiveness. 

For  a  few  moments  he  Stood  looking  at  me,  his 
face  alight  with  that  same  smile  of  tenderness 
and  compassion  that  had  seemed  to  draw  me  up 
from  the  depths  of  despair  when  I  made  my  agon- 
ized appeal  to  him  a  few  days  ago.  Then — and 
his  voice  was  like  the  whispering  of  the  morning 
breeze  among  the  flowers — he  murmured,  "Said 
I  not  unto  thee  that  if  thou  wouldSt  believe  thou 
shouldSl  see  the  glory  of  God?" 


These  words  were  spoken  by  the  tender  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  long,  long  ago,  as  a  rebuke  to  the 
unbelief  of  a  poor,  grief-Slricken  woman.  That  her 
brother,  who  had  been  dead  three  days,  should  be 
restored  to  her,  alive  and  well,  was  impossible — 
too  good  to  be  true. 

130 


JEAN    EVARTS 

And  Jesus  simply  told  her  that  nothing  was 
too  good  to  be  true;  that  it  was  only  the  good  that 
was  true,  and  that  his  message  to  mankind  was 
to  tell  them  that  if  they  would  §lop  looking  at  evil, 
and  ivould  look  only  at  Good,  and  believe  only  in 
the  reality  of  Good,  every  tear  should  be  wiped 
away,  every  wounded  heart  healed,  and  every 
mountain  of  sorrow  removed  and  caM  into  the  sea 
of  oblivion. 

It  was  not  the  man  Jesus,  but  the  Christ  Prin- 
ciple working  through  him,  that  healed  the  sick 
and  raised  the  dead.  That  Principle  is  eternal, 
and  is  with  us  today  just  as  much  as  it  was  when 
Jesus  taught  by  the  shores  of  Galilee.  It  is  ju^ 
as  effe6live  today  as  it  was  then,  for,  like  the  rules 
of  mathematics  or  music,  it  suffers  no  diminution 
of  power  with  age.  And  like  these,  it  is  abso- 
lutely unfailing  when  corre6tly  applied. 

We  have  said  that  the  real  Man  is  the  spiritual 
likeness,  the  image,  of  infinite  Mind,  and  that 
mortal  man  is  the  image  of  the  communal  mortal 
mind,  and  therefore  the  opposite  of  real  Man. 
We  have  said  that  Man  has  never  fallen,  and  that 
mortal  man  is  not  to  be  saved — cannot  be  saved 
as  such.  A  mortal  is  not  a  Man.  The  physical 
concept  of  man  is  an  insult  to  divine  Intelligence. 

Yet,  since  ideas  of  Right  and  Justice  and  Good 
permeate  even  material  modes  of  conduct  to  some 
extent,  so  the  consciousness  which  we  call  mortal 
man  is  not  wholly  without  some  refle6lion  of  divine 
qualities.  A  spark  of  love  is  often  seen  in  the 
lowest  criminal;  and  the  mo^  hardened  sinner 

131 


THE  DIARY  OF 

sometimes  shows  that  he  is  not  wholly  devoid  of 
spiritual  thought.  God  is  seen  in  His  refle6lion, 
and  He  is  thus  seen  to  some  extent  everywhere. 
Neither  time  nor  space  nor  false  thought  of  any 
kind  can  so  wholly  occupy  a  human  consciousness 
as  to  keep  out  every  divine  attribute.  When  Jesus 
looked  upon  a  man  he  saw,  not  the  mortal  man, 
not  the  unreal  man,  the  opposite,  the  counterfeit, 
of  true  Man,  but  the  reality  that  lay  behind  all 
this,  and  in  that  reality  he  saiv  the  image  of  God, 
divine  Mind. 

What  was  the  result?  His  knowledge  of  the 
reality  of  infinite  Good  and  its  image,  Man,  de- 
^royed  in  the  human  consciousness  of  the  sick 
mortal  the  mental  concept  of  disease,  and  re- 
placed it  with  a  concept  of  health.  The  body,  itself 
a  thing  of  thought,  responded  instantly  to  the 
radical  change  of  thought  regarding  it. 

As  in  any  problem  the  truth  in  regard  to  it 
affords  the  corre6l  solution,  so  the  truth  with  re- 
gard to  Man  solves  the  problem  of  the  mortal. 
And  this  is  the  only  "salvation"  possible  to  man- 
kind. The  only  salvation  for  the  counterfeit  dollar 
is  to  make  it  over;  and  in  this  process  it  mu^ 
disappear.  So  it  is  with  mortals.  The  mental 
activity  of  false  thought,  which  results  in  those 
mental  concepts  which  constitute  mortal  man  and 
his  universe,  musl  be  replaced  by  the  activity  of 
true  thought,  which  in  turn  will  form  mental  con- 
cepts of  the  true  Man  and  God's  Creation. 

God  is  Mind.  Mind  originates  ideas.  Ideas 
form  thought-images.    These  ideas  are  infinite  in 

182 


JEAN   EVARTS 

number  and  variety.  The  unfolding  of  these  ideas 
in  Mind  is  the  Creation.  The  higheSl  idea  that 
Mind  can  have  is  the  idea  of  Itself.  This  idea 
necessarily  includes  all  other  ideas.  This  idea 
exists  in  Mind,  and  is  eternal  with  it.  This  idea 
is  the  exaSt  image  and  likeness  of  Mind.  It  is  a 
reflection  of  all  of  Mind's  qualities  and  attributes. 
It  is  therefore  the  '^ conscious  identity"  of  being 
like  infinite  Mind.  That  is,  it  manifests  conscious- 
ness and  individuality.  It  is  "an  individualized 
expression"  of  Mind.  This  idea  is  Man.  This  is 
the  Man  that  Jesus  always  saw. 

Very  far  removed,  indeed,  from  the  common 
conception  of  man !  The  true  Man  is  not  flesh  and 
bones.  He  is  not  confined  in  a  body.  He  is  not 
limited.  He  is  in  no  sense  material.  He  is  a 
spiritual  being,  an  unlimited  consciousness,  whose 
mental  a6livity  is  the  activity  of  God's  thought. 
This  thought  comes  directly  from  God,  infinite 
Mind,  and  forming  the  real  consciousness,  is  re- 
rle6ted  there  so  as  to  express  and  manife^.  God. 
Man,  being  God's  idea,  is,  in  a  sense,  actually 
formed  and  made  up  of  God's  thought. 

As  Mind,  God,  has  countless  ideas  of  Himself, 
so  there  are  countless  individualized  expressions 
of  His  conscious  Being.  These  are  Men.  They 
are  the  sons  and  daughters  of  God.  Each  is  a 
consciousness  whose  capacity  is  unlimited,  and 
each  is  a  channel  through  which  God  expresses 
Himself.  At  no  time  does  He  express  Himself 
fully  through  any  one  of  His  ideas — this  is  the 
work  of  eternity.    But  whatever  expression  there 

133 


THE  DIARY  OF 

may  be  at  any  time  is  always  perfect,  harmonious, 
beautiful,  and  good. 

The  lesser  ideas  of  Mind  form  the  re^  of  the 
Creation;  and  these  ideas  are  interpreted  by  mor- 
tal consciousness  as  flowers,  hills,  breams,  ani- 
mals, etc.,  although  the  material  concepts  which 
bear  these  names  may  be,  and  probably  are  very 
different  from  the  spiritual  realities  of  which 
they  are  the  crude  interpretations,  or  represen- 
tations. 

And  all  was  created  to  reflect  and  manifest  the 
greatness,  the  glory  and  grandeur  of  limitless 
Mind.  ''For  thou  ha^  created  all  things,  and  for 
thy  pleasure  they  are  and  were  created." 

By  the  supposition  of  opposites,  the  communal 
mortal  mind,  the  opposite  of  infinite  Mind,  simu- 
lates all  the  powers  and  attributes  of  Mind.  Its 
consciousness  is  the  a6livity  of  false  thought,  and 
is  itself,  therefore,  false.  Its  a6livity  is  simulated 
activity.  Its  creation  is  a  false  creation,  consi.'?!;- 
ing  of  mental  concepts  built  up  out  of  false 
thought.  Its  image  and  likeness,  mortal  man,  is 
also  false  and  unreal;  and  men,  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  mortal  mind,  are  without  Principle, 
and  are  therefore  chaotic,  diseased,  and  transi- 
tory, vanishing,  like  mortal  dreams,  into  the  noth- 
ingness called  death. 

The  modus  of  the  human  mind  is  one  of  coun- 
terfeiting. The  human  consciousness,  which  is 
concerned  with  the  activity  of  thoughts  of  mixed 
good  and  evil,  becomes  aware  of  the  existence  of 
one  of  the  realities  of  Mind,  a  real  Idea.     This 

134 


JEAN    EVARTS 

awareness  comes  to  the  liuman  consciousness 
through  sense-perception,  which  has  been  defined 
as  ''an  unintelligible  sort  of  mental  awareness." 
This  sense-perception  is  then  passed  through  the 
moulds  of  human  thought,  where  the  forces  of 
pa^  experience,  training,  education,  or  human 
opinion  are  brought  to  bear,  and  it  then  becomes 
mentally  interpreted,  after  which  it  comes  out  an 
image  of  human  thought,  that  is,  a  mental  con- 
cept. Human  belief  classifies  it  and  gives  it  a 
name,  and  it  then  takes  its  place  in  the  human 
consciousness  as  an  obje6l  of  creation,  a  tree,  a 
mountain,  a  man,  or  one  of  the  myriad  so-called 
material  things  that  form  the  material  universe 
that  the  mortal  man  thinks  he  sees  without  him- 
self. In  this  way  are  formed  all  of  the  objects  of 
the  material  creation  and  of  material  experience 
and  existence.  These  material  obje6ts  of  creation 
are  all  crude  misrepresentations  of  spiritual  real- 
ities, which  themselves  are  parts  of  God's  crea- 
tion. These  so-called  material  objects  exiSt  only 
in  the  human  mentality,  and  have  only  the  reality, 
powers,  and  attributes  which  that  mentality  gives 
them.  They  are  not  formed  by  infinite  Mind,  nor 
has  that  Mind  an5i;hing  to  do  with  them.  All  the 
evil  that  men  think  they  can  know  clusters  about 
these  material  creations  of  the  hmnan  conscious- 
ness. 

AVhat  salvation  is  there  for  such  a  creation 
and  such  a  man?  None,  absolutely  none.  This 
sort  of  man  cannot  be  perpetuated.  He  is  doomed 
by  his  very  nature.    Jesus  knew  that  this  sort  of 

135 


THE  DIARY  OF 

man  was  not  to  be  saved;  and  so  his  plan  of  re- 
demption was  one  of  absolute  recon§lru6tion,  a 
putting  off  of  the  old  man,  and  a  putting  on  of  the 
nev7 — that  is,  a  laying  aside  of  the  seeming,  and 
an  uncovering  or  revealing  of  the  real  exiting 
Man. 

This  "putting  off"  process  is  simple  in  Prin- 
ciple, as  is  all  Truth.  It  consists  of  emptying  the 
mentality  of  false  thoughts,  and  replacing  these 
with  true.  True  thoughts,  coming  from  divine 
Mind,  enter  the  human  consciousness  and  dissolve 
there  the  mental  images  and  concepts  which  have 
been  formed  of  false  thought,  replacing  them 
with  mental  concepts  formed  of  God's  thought, 
which  is  wholly  free  from  evil. 

The  consciousness  then  gives  way  to  the  activ- 
ity of  reality,  of  Truth,  and  true  consciousness 
appears.  God's  thoughts  fill  this  consciousness 
and  form  there  true  mental  concepts.  These  be- 
come externalized  in  spirituality,  immortality, 
and  freedom  from  all  limitations  of  evil.  Sin, 
sorrow,  sickness,  loss,  lack,  decay,  and  death — all 
the  festering  brood  of  false  thoughts  that  inhabit 
the  human  consciousness — are  shown  to  be  devoid 
of  Principle  and  Life,  and  to  be  without  any  basis 
of  reality.  De^iial  of  their  reality,  and  opposition 
to  their  supposed  presence,  together  ivith  the  un- 
derstanding of  their  nothingness,  drives  them  out, 
and  in  driving  them  out  consumes  them,  that  is, 
shows  them  to  he  hut  falsities,  illusions,  however 
real  they  may  have  seemed  to  the  mentality  that 
harbored  them.     AVhen  the  human  consciousness 

136 


JEAN    EVARTS 

is  finally  freed  from  the  a6tivity  of  false  thoug'ht, 
it  will  cease  its  simulated  exigence.  Then  mater- 
iality and  evil  will  likewise  cease;  and  when  the 
material  concepts  dissolve  and  give  place  to  the 
spiritual,  "the  heavens  will  be  rolled  up  as  a 
scroll. ' ' 

Man  is  not  annihilated  by  this  process,  nor 
does  he  lose  his  individuality.  On  the  contrary, 
his  apparently  loSt  individuality,  the  real  individ- 
uality, is  regained,  or  is  brought  to  light.  It  is 
not  Man  that  is  lo^  in  this  process,  but  the  false 
sense  of  man.  The  material  "I"  certainly  is  loSt, 
and  there  is  no  help  for  it.  All  sense  of  sin,  of 
matter,  of  material  pleasures  and  suffering,  all 
sense  of  life  in  matter,  and  of  decay  and  death, 
will  pass  away.  It  is  all  without  Principle  or 
Creator,  and  is  wholly  dependent  upon  falsity  for 
its  apparent  existence.  The  material  sense  of 
selfhood  will  be  de^royed. 

But  as  the  false  concepts  disappear,  the  real 
appear.  Nothing  real  can  be  lost.  The  material 
sense  of  man  is  that  which  sins  and  dies,  and  not 
God's  Man.  It  is  the  sense  of  sin,  and  of  all  that 
such  sinful  sense  entails,  that  is  lost  in  this  divine 
process.  The  conflict  between  Truth  and  error 
— which,  after  all,  is  but  a  seeming  conflic"^,  for 
Truth  has  no  ^rife  with  its  suppositional  oppo- 
site— takes  place  only  within  the  human  con- 
sciousness. And  this  confli6t  can  have  but  one 
result,  namely,  the  extinction  of  the  suppositional 
activity  which  constitutes  the  human  conscious- 
ness.    The  counterfeit  coin  cannot  be  made  gen- 

137 


THE  DIARY  OF 

nine.  Neither  can  the  mortal  man  be  made  gen- 
uine. Like  the  counterfeit  dollar,  he  mu^  cease 
to  be,  and  mu§l  give  place  to  the  real.  Mortal 
man  refle6ts  only  in  slight  degree  the  realities  of 
God.  But  as  the  mortal  consciousness  becomes 
filled  with  Truth,  it  gradually  ceases  to  be,  until 
finally  it  goes  out  altogether,  and  the  real  con- 
sciousness, God's  Man,  ^ands  revealed.  Paul 
said  that  this  new  man  was  "renewed  in  knowl- 
edge after  the  image  of  Him  that  created  him." 
The  renewed  man  is  the  mortal  man  going  out, 
and,  in  the  passing,  becoming  a  better  transpar- 
ency through  ivhich  the  real  Man  is  discerned.  As 
the  mist  dissolves  and  the  rich  landscape  beyond 
becomes  ever  more  and  more  di!5lin6t,  so  the 
human  consciousness,  the  mortal  man,  becomes 
more  and  more  tenuous  under  the  powerful  influ- 
ence of  Truth,  revealing  ever  more  clearly  the  real 
Man,  the  likeness  of  divine  Mind,  which  had 
seemed  to  be  obscured  by  it.  The  real  Man  is  not 
renewed,  for  he  is  ever  perfect,  forever  refle6ting 
the  infinite  perfection  of  the  Mind  that  created 
him.  It  is  thus  that  the  pure  in  heart  see  God. 
As  the  false  thinking  gives  place  to  better  think- 
ing, and  erroneous  concepts  yield  to  better  ones, 
we  begin  to  see  through  the  renewed  man  as  an 
ever  clarifying  transparency  the  real  Man,  and  in 
this  real  Man  the  likeness  of  that  Mind  which  is 
back  of  all  that  is. 

Finally,  this  "putting  off"  process  cannot  re- 
sult in  loss  of  consciousness.  For  consciousness  is 
mental  a6livity,  and  a  mortal  man    has  no    true 

138 


JEAN    EVARTS 

consciousness,  since  a  mental  activity  of  mixed 
good  and  evil  thoughts  is  a  self-contradi6lory 
mentality.  The  mortal  loses  his  beliefs  of  evil 
and  his  sense  of  discord.  This  sort  of  mental 
a(5tivity  ceases.  But  the  mental  a6livity  that  re- 
places this  is  the  activity  of  real  thought,  con^i- 
tuting  a  real  consciousness.  Therefore,  in^ead 
of  losing  his  consciousness,  the  man  has  gained  a 
new  one. 

If  a  criminal  reforms  and  turns  from  his  evil 
ways,  if  his  consciousness  of  pleasure  in  crime  is 
replaced  by  a  consciousness  of  pleasure  in  good, 
can  he  be  said  to  have  lo^  his  consciousness  in 
the  process  of  transformation?  And  if  we,  by  the 
divine  process,  lose  our  consciousness  of  sin,  dis- 
ease, matter,  and  all  evil,  can  it  be  said  that  we 
have  lo^  anything?  Are  not  these  the  very  things 
that  humanity  has  ^ruggled  throughout  the  ages 
to  get  rid  off  Jesus 's  mission  was  to  show  man- 
kind how  to  do  it.  And  he  proved  the  truth  of  his 
teachings  by  doing  it  himself. 


'*Do  you  mean  to  say  that  Jesus  taught  these 
things  that  you  have  been  telling  me  ? "  I  queried. 
*'I  have  never  read  them  in  the  Bible;  and  cer- 
tainly they  are  not  preached  in  our  churches." 

"No,  these  things  are  not  preached  from  our 
pulpits,"  he  answered.  ''But  the  theories,  dogmas 
and  man-made  do6trines  that  are  preached  so 
generally  in  our  churches  are  very  far  from  being 
the  pure  Christianity  that  Jesus  taught.     As  I 

139 


THE  MAEY  OF  JEAxV  EVARTS 

have  said,  and  I  but  repeat  liis  words,  'by  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them.'  The  test  is  a6tual 
demonstration,  for  Truth  is  always  demon^rable ; 
and  if  by  applying  our  under^anding  of  his 
teachings  we  can  obtain  the  results  he  said  we 
would,  we  may  be  very  sure  we  have  understood 
him  correctly,  regardless  of  what  theologians  or 
wise  men  may  say." 

"But  I  don't  see  that  w^e  get  the  results  he 
said  we  w^ould,"  I  argued,  with  some  petulance. 
''People  sicken  and  die  now  just  as  they  did  in 
his  time." 

"And  some,"  he  replied  quickly,  "are  saved 
from  these  things  by  those  few  who  do  under- 
stand his  work,  and  who  know  how  to  apply,  at 
least  in  part,  the  great  Principle  he  taught." 

Then  he  left  me.  And  when  he  had  gone  the 
realization  of  what  he  had  done  for  me  came  upon 
me  with  such  suddenness  that  I  sat  as  one 
Stunned.  "WHien  I  came  to  myself  I  hurriedly  rose 
and  Started  after  him. 

But  he  had  passed  from  my  sight.  And  with 
his  going  the  sun  seemed  to  sink,  and  night  began 
to  cover  the  valley  and  the  pathway  with  its  som- 
ber robe.  With  eyes  blinded  with  tears  of  re- 
pentance I  groped  my  way  back  to  the  house ;  and 
there,  in  the  quiet  of  my  little  room,  I  knelt  and 
offered  the  firSt  prayer  of  gratitude  that  has  come 
from  my  lips  since  childhood. 


140 


MAY  21ST 


MAY  21ST 

NEW  sense  of  life  has  unfolded 
within  me!  A  song  of  joy,  an 
eagerness  to  praise  God  for  this 
rich  inflow  of  happiness,  welled  in 
my  heart  when  I  awoke  this  morn- 
ing and  saw  the  sunlight  pouring 
into  the  room  in  a  shower  of  gold.  So  has  Truth 
itself  poured  into  my  waiting  mind  these  pa§l 
few  days  and  created  there  a  better  concept  of 
being.  Life — freedom — health !  My  eyes  fill  with 
tears  of  gratitude  when  I  try  to  realize  that  these 
have  been  re^ored  to  me. 

Who  is  this  Granger?  And  why  does  he  never 
speak  of  himself?  It  seemed  so  natural  that  he 
should  come  to  me  in  my  hour  of  greate^  need, 
that  I  did  not  then  que^ion  the  motives  that  sent 
him.  I  seemed  to  know  him — I  feel  now  as  if  I 
had  always  known  him.  And  I  have  accepted  him 
as  he  has  chosen  to  come — much,  I  think,  as  Jesus 
came  to  the  waiting  hearts  of  Galilee,  saying  little 
about  himself,  but  wonderful  things  of  the  Father 
who  had  sent  him. 

^'Of  myself  I  have  done  nothing,"  he  said, 
when  I  tried  this  morning  to  express  my  over- 
whelming sense  of  gratitude.  ''It  was  the  Christ 
Principle  operating  in  your  consciousness,  which, 
like  Jesus  with  his  whip  of  cords,  drove  out  the 
money  changers  and  traffickers  who  had  made  the 
temple  of  the  Mosl  High  a  den  of  thieves.  Your 
consciousness  is  God's  temple;  and  when  Jesus 
said  to  those  whom  he  had  healed,  'Go,  and 
sin  no  more,'  he  bade  them,  as  I  do  you,  keep 

143 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

watch  at  the  doorway  of  this  temple,    that  the 
thieves  might  not  enter  again." 


To  us  as  honeiSt  searchers  after  Truth,  who 
turn  to  a  §tudy  of  the  life  and  deeds  of  Jesus  as 
recorded  in  the  Bible,  theological  subtleties,  man- 
made  creeds,  or  involved  points  of  do6trine  are 
wholly  without  intere^.  It  is  of  little  importance 
when  or  where  the  man  Jesus  lived.  His  gene- 
alogy does  not  call  for  a  second  thought.  How 
long  he  lived,  what  he  looked  like,  and  the  thou- 
sand other  points  of  human  interest  that  satisfy 
the  merely  curious,  have  no  concern  for  us. 

Nor  are  we  vitally  interested  in  the  authorship 
of  his  history.  Whether  Matthew  wrote  the  gospel 
generally  attributed  to  him,  and  when  or  in  what 
language  it  was  w^ritten,  are  of  no  special  moment. 
The  question  of  the  priority  of  the  book  of  Mark, 
and  the  tangled  disputes  regarding  the  author- 
ship of  the  book  of  John,  have  no  bearing  what- 
soever on  our  search.  The  problem  of  the  Synop- 
tic gospels,  their  disagreements  in  trivial  points 
of  narrative,  are  unworthy  of  our  time  and 
thought.  However  important  they  may  be  con- 
sidered from  a  theological  point  of  view,  the  proof 
of  the  canon,  and  the  proof  tliat  the  gospels  were 
written  by  the  men  whose  names  th(iy  boar,  are  in 
no  way  essential  to  the  demonstration  of  Chris- 
tianity as  a  divine  revelation. 

As  to  Paul,  it  has  been  said  that  he  had  a  fit 
on  the  way  to  Damascus.     But  we  may  dismiss 

144 


JEAN    EVAETS 

the  incident  with  the  casual  observation  that,  if 
so,  it  was  the  most  momentous  fit  a  liuman  being 
ever  had.  The  question  of  authorship  of  the  book 
of  Hebrews  may  be  left  for  those  worldly  wise  to 
settle  who  find  recreation  and  pleasure  in  this 
sort  of  research.  Even  the  conflicting  views  re- 
garding the  historicity  of  the  man  JesuS;  which 
have  given  rise  to  such  heated  debates,  and  are 
^ill  left  unsettled,  have  no  immediate  bearing  on 
our  xjroblem.  We  accept  the  hi^orical  i^atement 
that  he  lived  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  even  as  we 
accept  the  historicity  of  Augu^us  himself. 

What,  then,  is  our  problem? 

This :  Can  that  which  Jesus  is  reported  to 
have  taught  be  formulated  as  the  expression  of  a 
definite  Principle,  or  Truth?  If  so,  can  it  be 
grasped  by  mankind,  and  successfully  applied  to 
the  so-called  problem  of  human  existence? 

For,  if  that  w^hich  has  been  reported  in  the 
New  Testament  as  his  teaching  is  an  exposition 
of  Truth,  and  if  we  can  grasp  it,  we  can  demon- 
^rate  it  as  rigidly  as  we  can  prove  the  truth  of  a 
mathematical  principle. 

If  it  is  not  capable  of  proof,  we  but  wa^e  our 
time  discussing  it. 

Unfortunately  for  the  world,  many  of  its 
greate^  minds  have  expended  their  energies  on 
the  lii^orical  record  and  letter  of  Christianit}^, 
rather  than  on  any  systematic  attempts  to  prove 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  claims  of  what  we  know 
as  the  Chri^  Principle.  If  men  could  not  agree 
on  the  authenticity  of  the  works    attributed    to 

145 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Jesus,  why  did  they  not  follow  the  rules  he  gave 
for  doing  these  same  works,  and  thus  prove 
whether  or  not  he  told  the  truth.  There  is  but  one 
te§t,  demon^ration.  And  Jesus  insi^ed  on  this 
very  point,  and  begged  his  hearers  to  follow  his 
rules,  his  commands,  and  do  the  same  works,  and 
even  greater  works  than  he  did.  Those  of  us  who 
are  warmest  in  insi^ing  that  Jesus  was  a  man  of 
the  highe^  integrity,  are  frequently  the  la§l  to 
admit  that  he  told  the  truth.  His  teachings  mu^ 
^and  or  fall  by  the  te^  of  a6tual  demoniftration, 
even  as  the  principles  of  music,  mathematics,  or 
engineering.  Faith  in  his  goodness  and  integrity 
will  not  carry  us  far ;  we  are  called  upon  to  prove 
the  quality  of  his  teachings. 

One  great  obstacle  in  the  minds  of  men  has 
been  disbelief  in  their  ability  to  prove  what  Jesus 
taught.  They  have  thought  that  his  work  was 
for  a  certain  time  only.  He  did  these  works,  they 
say,  to  prove  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  and  men 
would  be  presumptuous  to  try  to  imitate  that 
which  only  a  supernatural  being  could  do. 

Another  obstacle  has  been  the  inherent  inertia 
of  the  human  mind.  It  requires  great  mental 
effort  to  i)rove  metaphysical  principles.  It  was 
far  easier  to  believe  that  Jesus  did  his  work  for 
all  mankind,  to  the  utter  exemption  of  any  re- 
sponsibility on  their  part,  and  that  in  some  way, 
if  men  could  musster  up  sufficient  faith  in  him  they 
would  be  carried  through  the  gateway  of  death 
and  finally  saved.  Yet,  if  ivhat  Jesus  is  reported 
to  have  taught  is  true,  and  if  what  we  have  said 

14G 


JEAN    EVAETS 

in  the  pa  ft  few  days  about  the  mortal  man  is  like- 
wise true,  every  man,  ivithout  a  single  exception, 
will  have  to  take  every  §lep  he  took,  will  have  to 
prove  all  he  proved,  and  do  it  for  himself,  even  to 
the  overcoming  of  death  and  matter,  before  im- 
mortality can  be  reached,  with  its  freedom  from 
the  ills  that  affliSl  the  human  race.  If  tlie  theo- 
logians who  have  written  volumes  on  the  disputed 
question  of  the  resurre6tion  had  expended  their 
efforts  in  an  attempt  to  prove,  by  following  with- 
out deviation  the  rules  laid  down  by  Jesus, 
whether  or  not  it  was  possible  to  resurre6t  those 
sunken  in  vice,  disease,  and  misery,  they  would 
have  loSt  intere^  in  a  bodily  resurre6tion,  and 
would  have  brought  the  millennium  nearer  by 
many  centuries.  If  the  preachers  of  the  gospel,  the 
do6tors  and  the  philanthropies  had  followed  in 
the  way  Jesus  walked,  it  would  have  led  them  out 
of  the  darkness  of  materialism  and  into  a  true 
resurre6lion  from  all  belief  in  that  which  God  and 
Man  are  not  and  never  could  have  been.  Jesus 
preached  the  gospel  of  a  perfe6t  Father,  a  God 
who  is  Spirit,  a  God  who  is  Love.  Yet  the  theo- 
logians ^ill  preach  the  utterly  impossible  doctrine 
of  Spirit  as  the  creator  of  a  universe  of  matter 
and  a  sinful  man  of  flesh — logic  that  would  not  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment  in  the  world  of  science. 
Jesus  healed  all  manner  of  disease,  instantan- 
eously, and  he  taught  his  followers  to  do  the  same. 
Yet  materia  medica,  the  mo^  uncertain  of  all 
sciences,  is  no  nearer  eradicating  disease  from 
human  experience  today  than  it  was  when  Jesus 

147 


THE  DIARY  OF 

cleared  the  human  consciousness  of  its  foul  brood 
of  beliefs  by  his  certain  application  of  the  Christ 
Principle,  and  without  the  use  of  drugs  or  bodily 
manipulation. 

The  keynote  of  Jesus 's  teaching  was  the 
Fatherhood  of  God.  When  he  said,  *  *  And  call  no 
man  your  father  upon  the  earth:  for  one  is  your 
Father,  which  is  in  heaven,"  he  pointed  men  in 
the  way  of  right  thinking,  and  gave  them  the 
major  premise  from  which  every  corre6l  con- 
clusion might  logically  be  deduced.  His  whole 
mini^ry  was  a  development  of  the  idea  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  and  its  application  to  the 
needs  of  the  human  consciousness. 

He  ^ated  God  in  terms  of  right  rules  of  con- 
duct, as  Principle,  or  ''cause  in  the  widest  sense." 
As  defined  by  our  own  Lexicographers,  Principle 
is  ''that  by  which  anything  is  in  any  way  ulti- 
mately regulated  or  determined;"  "the  begin- 
ning;" "original  cause;"  "origin;"  "source;" 
"a  permanent  and  fundamental  cause  that  natur- 
ally and  necessarily  produces  certain  results." 

God  being  Principle,  He  is  that  "with  whom 
is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning," 
for  Truth  never  changes.  Since  He  is  that  by 
which  all  is.  His  law  is  the  only  law,  and  the  law 
of  His  being  muSl  be  the  law  of  all  being.  There- 
fore, man-made  laws  and  human  hypotheses  and 
speculations  have  no  warrant  or  autliority,  nor 
have  any  laws  unless  they  are  based  upon  divine 
Principle. 

148 


JEAN    EVARTS 

In  the  light  of  what  has  been  said  during  the 
pa^  few  days,  can  we  assume  that  God  is  the 
Father  of  mortals? 

Mortals  have  no  principle,  no  cause,  no  cre- 
ator, no  father.  Their  simulated  exigence  is 
wholly  dependent  upon  God.  Were  it  not  for  Him, 
they  could  offer  no  claim  to  life  and  being.  What- 
ever life  they  seem  to  have — and  their  life  is  but 
a  seeming — is  a  material  interpretation  of  Him 
who  is  Life.  All  that  in  any  sense  mortals  seem 
to  be  or  to  have  is  w^holly  dependent  upon  God, 
and  is  a  simulation  of  what  He  is  and  has.  He 
did  not,  by  a  deliberate  &&.  of  creation,  bring 
them  into  their  simulated  exii^lence;  yet  if  Prin- 
ciple, Life,  Truth,  Love,  etc.,  wiiich  they  simulate, 
were  withdrawn  from  them  they  would  vanish 
into  their  native  nothingness.  Their  very  exist- 
ence hangs  upon  Him.  They  can.  look  to  no  other 
Father  than  God.  He  draws  them,  as  Jesus  said 
He  drew  all  men  and  would  continue  to  draw 
them,  until  every  knee  should  bow  to  Him  and 
every  tongue  confess  His  name.  What  does  this 
mean?  A  mere  confession  of  belief  in  the  divinity 
of  God?  Much  more,  for  mortal  man  w^ould  never 
confess  the  name  of  God  until  he  had  been  com- 
pletely transformed  and  had  ceased  to  be  mortal. 
It  is  not  possible  to  the  consciousness  that  is 
wholly  material  to  confess  that  infinite  Mind  is 
supreme.  That  consciousness  mus^  firSt  be  drawn 
to  infinite  Mind,  through  Love,  and  mu^  be  sub- 
je<5ted  to  the  working  of  the  Christ  Principle, 
Truth,  which  enters  the  mortal  consciousness  and 

149 


THE  DIAEY  OF, 

dissolves  the  false  material  concepts  there  and 
replaces  them  with  concepts  of  reality.  In  this 
way  the  mortal  consciousness  changes  its  beliefs 
and  concepts,  beliefs  of  sin  and  sickness  giving 
way  to  better  beliefs  of  goodness  and  health,  and 
the  consciousness  continually  becoming  a  clearer 
transparency  for  Truth,  until,  ever  changing  in 
response  to  the  perfect  model  held  before  it,  the 
mortal  consciousness  at  la^  ceases  to  be,  and  the 
true  spiritual  consciousness,  in  which  there  is  no 
materiality,  and  no  mortality,  Stands  permanently 
revealed.  Thus  is  God  the  Father  even  of  mor- 
tals, in  that  He  sustains  them  while  subje6led  to 
this  divine  process,  even  though  they  may  pass 
through  the  experience  called  death,  which  is  but 
another  modus  of  mortal  thought.  As  the  divine 
Father  who  is  Love,  He  draws  them  to  Himself, 
to  be  changed  and  to  give  place  to  His  own  image 
and  likeness.  He  did  not  create  imperfe6t,  mortal 
men.  Yet  even  they  cannot  escape  that  all-per- 
vading, infinite  Love  that  lifts  them  up  out  of 
darkness  into  the  light  that  is  Life, 

The  fir.^  step  in  this  process  of  transforming 
the  mortal  man  is  to  implant  within  the  mortal 
consciousness  the  great  Truth  of  God's  infinitude. 
Hence  the  command  which  Jesus  said  embodied 
all  the  law  and  the  prophets:  "Hoar,  0  Israel; 
the  Lord  our  God  is  one  God :  and  thou  slialt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with 
all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all 
thy  ^rength :  this  is  the  fir^  and  great  command- 
ment."   "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  Gods  before 

150 


JEAN    EVARTS 

me,"  if  thou  wouldSt  see  false  consciousness  dis- 
solve and  give  place  to  the  real.  To  love  God 
supremely  is  to  love  supremely  that  which  alone 
is  Good  and  Truth.  It  is  to  rid  ourselves  of  falsi- 
ties, of  lu^,  envy,  hatred,  avarice,  selfishness, 
fear,  and  all  the  evils  that  combine  under  these 
names.  It  is  to  meet  and  put  out  of  consciousness, 
and,  therefore,  out  of  experience,  sin  and  disease, 
whether  called  mental,  moral,  or  physical,  and  all 
discord  of  every  name  and  nature.  Jesus  was  a 
very  wise  man,  generally  regarded  as  the  wise^ 
man  that  ever  lived.  He  knew  that  it  was  pos- 
sible for  men  to  follow  his  commands,  else  he 
would  not  have  urged  them.  But,  more,  he  knew 
that  men  would  have  to  follow  them,  or  they  would 
continue  to  sicken  and  suffer  and  die.  He  showed 
by  his  own  life  what  might  be  expe6ted  as  the  re- 
sult of  following  these  commands,  and  he  proved 
the  truth  of  every  statement  he  made.  He  did 
not  tell  men  that  they  muSl  wait  until  they  had 
died  before  they  could  see  the  proofs. 

Jesus  taught  that  God  is  Love ;  and  he  told 
men  that  they  must  love  one  another,  or  they 
could  not  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being.  This  was 
perfectly  logical,  for  by  loving  his  neighbor  as 
himself,  man  reflected  God;  and  he  never  could 
refle6t  God  until  he  did  so.  This  was  why,  after 
giving  the  fir^  great  commandment,  Jesus  added : 
''And  the  second  is  like  unto  it,  namely  this.  Thou 
chalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 

Mortals  have  but  a  faint  idea  of  what  would 
be  the  result  of  loving  God  supremely  and  of  lov- 

151 


THE  DIARY  OF 

ing  one's  neighbor  as  one's  self,  mth  an  abso- 
lutely unselfish  love.  This  alone  would  result  in 
obliterating  the  mortal  sense  of  self.  The  mortal 
man  is  a  bargainer.  He  gives  where  he  thinks  he 
will  get  something  of  value  in  return.  He  is  a 
trafficker,  and  he  thinks  his  methods  reflect  great 
shrewdness.  But  even  from  the  business  Stand- 
point, he  never  made  a  greater  blunder  than  that 
of  failing  to  love  Good  supremely,  and  his  neigh- 
bor and  business  associates  as  himself.  To  a 
certain  extent  he  knows  this,  but  he  is  afraid  to 
put  it  to  the  te^,  fearing  that  while  he  is  trying 
it  his  fellow  man  will  get  some  material  advantage 
over  him.  Yet  this  would  be  absolutely  impossible 
if  he  understood  the  Principle  of  Good,  and  how 
to  use  it  for  his  own  protection  and  those  within 
the  radius  of  his  thought.  If  his  faith  were  on 
the  side  of  Good,  instead  of  evil,  he  would  ca^  out 
fear  and  rise  above  its  mesmerizing  influence. 

In  our  fir^  talk  we  drew  the  conclusion  that 
an  infinite  Creator  muist  of  very  necessity  be  a 
God  of  Love.  Jesus  taught  that  the  law  of  Man's 
being  is  divine  Principle  itself,  and  that  Principle 
is  Love.  No  man  has  ever  loved  as  Jesus  did ; 
and  when  he  said  to  Philijj,  ^Hle  t-liat  hath  seen 
me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  he  Slated  plainly  that 
the  Father  is  Love.  Not  love  in  the  human  sense, 
not  a  love  that  could  mingle  with  jealousy  or  self- 
seeking,  not  a  love  that  is  subject  to  fear,  but  a 
love  that  seeks  the  welfare  of  others,  and  that 
expresses  itself  in  joy,  happiness,  health,  abun- 
dance, and  all  good  for  all  mankind,  impartially 

152 


JEAN    EVARTS 

and  without  limitation.  When  he  bade  men  love 
one  another  he  laid  down  a  rule  whereby  harmony 
might  be  brought  into  their  lives.  Discord  in 
human  experience  results  from  broken  law.  And 
the  failure  to  fulfil  this  fundamental  law  of  Love, 
which  Jesus  taught  mankind,  is  responsible  for 
the  multitude  of  discords,  woes,  and  sorrows  that 
are  externalized  in  the  human  consciousness  and 
experience  today. 

Jesus  taught  that  the  power  of  Love  is  infinite. 
Nothing  can  ^and  again^  it  or  oppose  it.  We 
have  some  proofs  of  this  even  on  the  human  plane. 
The  mighty  works  that  Jesus  performed  were 
based  on  his  under^anding  of  God's  infinite  love 
for  His  whole  Creation,  including  Man.  God,  as 
Love,  could  not  affli6t  His  children.  He  could  not 
create  children  so  imperfect  that  he  mu^  needs 
send  affli6tions  upon  them  in  order  to  discipline 
them.  His  very  nature  makes  Him  be^ow  all 
good  upon  them.  And  He  has  already  done  this. 
Jesus  knew  it,  and  the  knowledge  of  this  great 
fa6t  enabled  him  to  dissolve  the  false  concepts 
held  in  the  human  consciousness  and  let  in  the 
light  of  Truth. 

To  love  is  to  be  wholly  unselfish.  Jesus  showed 
that  the  love  that  craves  the  gratification  of 
human  desires  is  not  Love,  but  covetousness.  His 
life  was  an  unbroken  exemplification  of  the  great 
truth  that  true  love  for  God  is  bound  to  manifest 
itself  in  unselfish  love  for  one's  fellow  men.  To 
those  who  thought  they  loved  the  God  whom  they 
had  not  seen,  he  gave  a  simple  te^:    How  much 

153 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

of  that  God  who  is  Love  are  you  refle6ling  to  your 
neighbor?  What  are  you  doing  in  your  daily  life 
that  is  not  for  your  own  material  advancement, 
your  own  selfish  ends!  Are  you  willing  to  sell 
what  you  have  and  give  to  the  poor?  In  other 
words,  are  you  willing  to  part  with  selfishness, 
greed,  avarice,  covetousness,  and  all  self-seeking, 
and  include  your  neighbor's  welfare  and  happi- 
ness in  your  thought  with  your  own?  This  is  to 
love.  It  is  not  passion,  it  is  not  romantic  attach- 
ment, it  is  not  mesmerism,  it  is  not  sensual  or  ma- 
terial— it  is  the  refle6lion  of  Him  who  was  seen  by 
men  in  the  tenderness,  the  patience,  the  goodness 
of  Chri^  Jesus,  in  the  compassion  that  forgave 
the  sinful  woman,  in  the  Omnipotence  that  billed 
the  raging  tempest. 

How  many  of  those  in  the  world  today  who 
lament  the  evil  and  sin  that  surround  them  are 
willing  to  admit  that  Jesus,  by  precept  and  ex- 
ample, gave  the  only  rule  whereby  such  things 
might  be  removed  from  human  experience?  Or, 
admitting  it,  are  willing  to  obey  him  and  love 
their  fellow  men  as  themselves  in  every  walk  of 
life,  business,  social,  or  whatsoever  it  may  be? 
And  if  they  believe  this  to  be  impossible,  where 
else  will  they  look  for  salvation?  What  else  is 
offered  them?  What  is  theri  in  man-made  creeds 
and  human  do6lrines  and  opinions  that  will  relieve 
a  single  one  of  their  sufferings,  or  remove  a  single 
discord  from  their  conscious  experience?  The 
world  has  nothing  but  dry  bones  to  offer.  The 
law  of  Love  admits  of  rigid  and  exa6t  demon^ra- 

154 


JEAN   EVARTS 

tion,  and  man  is  withortt  excuse  if  lie  turns  from 
it  to  the  frail  offerings  of  those  on  his  own  men- 
tal plane. 

Jesus  developed  the  idea  of  God  as  Spirit,  and 
of  Man  as  the  image  and  likeness  of  Spirit,  and 
therefore  spiritual.  The  religious  creeds  of  men 
emhody  the  letter  of  this  great  truth  in  one  form 
or  another ;  but  who  holds  to  it  in  f a6t,  or  shapes 
his  condu6l  to  conform  to  it?  How  can  a  man  of 
flesh,  or  a  mixture  of  soul  and  body,  a  medley  of 
good  and  evil,  of  mind  and  matter,  of  the  real  and 
the  unreal,  be  the  image  and  likeness  of  infinite, 
incorporeal  Spirit  ?  Paul  said,  ' '  They  that  are  in 
the  flesh  cannot  please  God."  Is  it  thinkable  that 
He  made  something  that  He  was  not  pleased  with, 
He  who  is  himself  infinite  Perfe6tion,  unlimited 
Wisdom?  Can  Spirit  make  matter,  its  direct  anti- 
thesis? Can  light  produce  darkness?  Material- 
ity is  the  habitat  of  all  that  is  known  as  evil.  The 
false  belief  that  matter  possesses  life,  sensation, 
and  intelligence,  that  it  is  the  cause  of  comfort, 
pleasure,  and  well-being,  is  the  basis  of  all  lying, 
cheating,  dealing,  and  murder.  Men  lie  about 
material  things;  they  Steal  material  objects  be- 
cause they  believe  they  are  the  source  of  good; 
they  murder  because  they  believe  that  matter 
holds  within  itself  the  issues  of  life  and  death. 
Their  pleasurable  sensations,  as  well  as  their 
pains  and  affli6tions,  are  based  on  matter.  Yet 
this  man  of  matter,  unhappily  attributed  to  God, 
is  the  man  that  Jesus  and  Paul  insisted  would 
have  to  be  ^'put  off." 

155 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Jesus,  the  man,  manifested  the  Chri^  Prin- 
ciple, and  he  did  this  as  perfe6tly  and  as  consist- 
ently as  human  limitations  of  form  and  environ- 
ment permitted.  Jesus  the  Christ  reflected  the 
divine  nature,  and  this  made  him  the  image  and 
likeness  of  God,  the  Son  of  God.  It  was  his  spirit- 
ual nature  that  was  God's  image  and  likeness. 
He  taught  things  that  were  strange  to  his  hearers, 
but  he  always  followed  his  words  with  deeds  that 
proved  them  words  of  Truth.  His  mission  was  to 
show  all  men  how  to  overcome  evil  by  overcoming 
the  false  beliefs,  the  false  thinking,  that  produce 
it,  and  by  understanding  the  Principle  that  is  the 
sole  Cause  and  Creator  of  all  that  exists.  He 
began  by  urging  men  to  repent — not  merely  to 
show  sorrow  for  their  evil  ways,  but  to  cease  the 
kind  of  thinking  that  results  in  wrong  condu6t. 
For,  in  the  Greek  text,  the  word  metanoia,  which 
we  translate  as  '^  repentance, "  means  a  complete 
change  of  thought.  A  change  of  thought,  in  turn, 
results  in  a  change  in  external  manife^ation. 

Jesus  lifted  men  up  to  claim  no  lesser  parent- 
age than  infinite  Mind;  and  by  healing  the  sick, 
raising  the  dead,  and  other  works  marvelous  in 
the  sight  of  his  followers,  he  showed  what  it  meant 
to  be  completely  in  accord  with  God,  what  it 
meant  to  love  Him  supremely,  and  one's  neighbor 
as  one's  self.  By  overcoming  death,  error,  and 
matter,  he  proved  Life,  Truth,  and  Spirit  to  be 
supreme.  His  radical  teaching  showed  that  he 
knew  God  in  a  way  that  others  did  not.  And  he 
knew  that  he  would  have  to  prove  this  way  of 

156 


JEAN    EVAETS 

knowing  God  to  be  the  only  correal  way  by  doing 
the  works  we  call  miracles.  Miracles,  indeed,  to 
the  materialistic  human  mind,  incapable  of  per- 
forming like  wonders ;  yet  divinely  natural  to  the 
Mind  that  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  unfettered  by  man- 
made  laws,  unhampered  by  any  sense  of  limita- 
tion, and  unhindered  by  any  belief  in  the  reality 
of  matter.  To  change  a  material  concept  is  no 
greater  miracle  to  infinite  Mind  than  the  correc- 
tion of  an  error  in  addition  is  to  the  Principle  of 
Mathematics. 

Jesus  acknowledged  no  allegiance  to  any  form 
of  religious  belief  or  do6lrine.  He  was  wholly 
unorthodox,  and  so  radical  in  his  teaching  and 
pra6lice  that  he  abounded  beyond  measure  the 
rabbis  and  wise  men  of  his  time.  He  refused  to 
acknowledge  any  power  but  God,  and  on  the  basis 
of  his  understanding  of  the  infinitude  of  God  he 
showed  evil  to  be  but  a  false  concept  in  the  human 
consciousness,  and  matter  to  be  the  opposite  of 
Spirit,  and  therefore  one  in  nature  with  evil.  He 
taught  that  to  believe  in  the  power  of  evil  is  to 
fight  in  evil's  cause.  He  said,  ''Resi^  not  evil." 
Why?  Because  residing  it  as  men  do  is  a  dire6t 
acknowledgment  of  its  reality;  and  the  human 
mind  can  never  overcome  anything  that  it  believes 
and  acknowledges  to  be  real.  A  real  thing  is 
eternal.  It  is  for  all  eternity^  and  can  never  be 
destroyed  or  overcome,  any  more  than  the  truth 
that  2+2=4  can  ever  be  successfully  refuted.  He 
overcame  e\T.l  on  the  basis  of  its  nothingness,  and 

157 


THE  DIARY  OF 

he  never  acknowledged  its  assumed  power  and 
reality  by  ^ruggling  wTtli  it. 

Jesus  proved  the  unlimited  dominion  of  Man 
conformed  to  God,  and  this  he  did  to  the  great 
a^tonislmient  of  those  who  witnessed  his  deeds. 
Their  concept  of  man  did  not  differ  from  that  held 
in  the  human  consciousness  today,  a  limited,  sin- 
ful, discordant,  fallen  man,  looking  vainly  for  a 
promised  deliverance.  He  tried  to  show  them 
that  their  deliverance  had  really  come,  and  his 
oft  repeated  queSlion,  ''Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?" 
witnessed  to  his  yearning  to  be  understood  as  the 
teacher  of  that  which  would  set  men  free  from  the 
bondage  of  false  beliefs.  He  proved  even  death 
itself,  the  king  of  terrors,  to  be  but  the  belief  of 
death,  the  very  logical  result  of  all  the  false  be- 
liefs which  make  up  the  human  man.  He  knew 
that  if  men  would  Stop  believing  in  a  power  op- 
posed to  God,  and  would  put  out  of  their  thouglit 
all  other  sinful  beliefs,  death  would  disappear 
from  consciousness.  He  overcame  death  on  tne 
basis  of  Life  as  infinite  and  eternal. 

When  he  bade  men  take  no  anxious  thought 
for  the  morrow  he  was  telling  them  plainly  that 
it  was  God's  business  to  supply  their  needs,  and 
that  God  did  not  have  to  be  reminded  of  His  duty. 
All  supply  comes  into  the  human  consciousness  as 
thought  before  it  becomes  externalized  in  con- 
sciousness as  that  which  meets  human  needs.  As 
God  is  the  only  Mind,  and  therefore  the  only 
thinker,  the  mental  supply  can  come  only  from 
Him.    Jesus  did  not  tell  men  that  God  would  meet 

158 


JEAN    EVARTS 

their  human  desires,  nor  that  by  pleading  with 
Him  they  could  influence  Him  to  satisfy  their 
covetousness.  But  he  did  show  them  that  God,  as 
Love,  mu^  continually  send  all  that  is  needed  for 
the  comfort  and  well-being  of  all  mankind.  But 
if  the  consciousness  that  constitutes  the  mortal 
man  is  already  full  of  limitation  thought,  of 
anxious  worry  thought,  and  of  disbelief  in  the 
power  of  Good,  there  can  be  but  little  room  left 
for  God's  thought  to  operate,  and  men  thus  see 
their  needs  imperf e6tly  met.  He  knew  that  taking 
anxious  thought  for  the  morrow  was  limiting 
one's  thought  of  God,  and  that  a  thought  of  lim- 
itation held  in  the  human  consciousness  would 
result  in  limitation  being  brought  out  in  conscious 
experience.  Did  he  say  this,  in  so  many  words? 
Did  he  thus  formulate  his  teaching  to  his  hearers? 
There  is  no  written  record  that  he  did.  But  his 
deeds  and  his  life  conduct  showed  that  he  knew 
this  Truth — showed  that  this  Truth  was  oper- 
ating through  the  man  Jesus.  And  a  persistent 
and  faithful  application  of  this  same  rule  is  today 
bringing  forth  similar  fruit. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  Jesus 's  keynote  of 
harmony  when  facing  discordant  conditions  was, 
*'Be  not  afraid."  How  could  one  who  was  in 
complete  accord  with  God  be  afraid?  He  knew 
that  fear  is  at  the  bottom  of  nearly  all  discord. 
He  knew  that  fear  is  sin,  for  it  is  disbelief  in  God. 
And  disbelief  in  God  is  belief  in  His  suppositional 
opposite,  evil.  It  is  sin  that  results  in  death. 
Therefore  he  urged  his  followers  to  be  of  good 

159 


THE  DIARY  OF 

cheer,  to  fear  not.  He  met  every  condition  as  its 
master,  and  he  gave  mankind  the  rule  for  doing 
the  same.  Circum^ances  are  simply  the  things 
that  seem  to  the  human  sense  to  gather  or  form 
around  us;  and  Jesus  Stated  that  there  was  no 
circumstance  that  could  prove  too  Strong  for  us 
if  we  had  faith  *  *  even  as  a  grain  of  muStard  seed, ' ' 
— faith  in  the  infinite  goodness  of  God,  and  under- 
Standing  of  the  nothingness  of  whatever  seems  to 
oppose  Him.  It  is  true  that,  although  he  once 
said,  ''Resist  not  evil,"  on  another  occasion  he 
did  say,  "ResiSt  the  devil  and  he  will  flee  from 
you."  His  manner  of  resisting  the  devil,  evil 
suggestions,  evil  thoughts,  was  exemplified  in  the 
wilderness,  when  he  bade  evil  get  behind  him,  for 
there  is  but  one  Power,  one  God,  infinite  Good. 
This  is  the  method  of  resisting  by  knowing,  jiiSt 
as  we  resist  any  problem  by  knowing  the  rule  that 
will  solve  it.  His  method  of  resisting  was  knowing 
the  Truth  in  all  cases,  juSt  as  our  method  of  re- 
sisting the  suggestion  that  2-j-2=7  is  knowing 
that  2-}-2=4,  and  not  by  taking  up  the  error  as  a 
real  thing  and  trying  to  overcome  it  on  the  as- 
sumption of  its  reality.  He  said,  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."  It 
is  the  Truth  that  makes  us  free  to  solve  every 
problem.  How  are  we  to  know  the  Truth?  Even 
as  he  said,  by  continuing  in  his  words.  And  we 
continue  in  his  words  when  we  put  them  to  the 
test  and  live  as  he  lived,  in  complete  accord  with 
God. 

160 


JEAN    EVARTS 

In  all  of  his  mighty  works  he  started  with  God 
as  the  major  premise.  When  confronted  with  the 
impotent  man  he  said,  ''Rise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and 
walk."  This  was  equivalent  to  saying,  "God 
being  the  only  Power,  there  is  nothing  that  can 
hold  Man,  and  nothing  that  can  enforce  a  pre- 
tense of  holding  Man.  The  claim  of  a  man  being 
held  by  anything  opposed  to  God  is  a  claim  of 
power  apart  from  God,  and  is  a  lie.  You  are  free, 
free-born,  free  to  do  and  be  what  is  right  for  you 
to  do  and  be,  and  you  have  the  God-given  ability 
to  see  this  and  to  manif e^  it. " 

To  the  man  with  the  withered  hand  he  said, 
'  *  Stretch  forth  thy  hand. ' '  He  did  not  say,  ' '  Re- 
ceive another  hand,"  but,  "Stretch  forth  THY 
hand,"  the  one  you  already  have,  foi  there  is  no 
evil  power  that  can  deprive  you  of  it.  Such  a 
power  would  give  the  lie  to  God,  and  is  incon- 
ceivable. 

To  the  blind  he  said,  "Receive  THY  sight," 
never  for  a  moment  admitting  that  Man  could  be 
blind.  To  Lazarus  he  said, ' '  Come  forth.  "COME 
FORTH !  Man  never  dies,  and  that  which  claims 
to  be  a  dead  man  is  a  lie,  one  with  the  father  of 
lies,  the  belief  that  there  can  be  anything  apart 
from  or  opposed  to  God,  who  is  infinite  Life ! 

Jesus  knew  the  Truth,  and  he  knew  that  he 
knew  it,  for  he  said  in  his  prayer  at  the  tomb  of 
Lazarus,  ' '  I  knew  that  Thou  heare^t  me  always. ' ' 
What  would  be  the  result  if  w^e  knew  that  God 
always  heard  us?  Could  any  manif elation  of  a 
supposed  power  apart  from  Him  find    place    in 

161 


THE  DIARY  OF 

our  consciousness!  He  went  Straight  to  infinite 
Mind  fir^,  and  he  went  with  a  faith  that  was  un- 
shaken. And  the  results  he  obtained  were  accord- 
ing to  his  faith,  even  though  the  world  calls  them 
miracles,  and  looks  upon  a  miracle  as  an  abroga- 
tion of  law  for  a  special  purpose,  or,  Still  more 
narrowly,  for  the  cure  of  those  few  who  were 
fortunate  enough  to  elicit  the  sympathy  of  Jesus. 
He  always  sought  firSt  ''the  kingdom  of  God," 
and  everything  else  that  he  needed  was  added 
unto  him.  And  he  told  men  to  do  the  same.  Why! 
Because  when  one  has  found  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  the  kingdom  of  harmony,  he  has  found  all 
things.  And  where  did  he  say  this  Kingdom  was 
to  be  found"?  Within.  Within  the  body?  Within 
the  carnal  nindf  No,  the  living  is  never  found 
among  the  dead.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  a  Slate 
of  spiritual  consciousness,  the  a6livity  of  which 
is  the  a6tivity  of  God's  thought,  nothing  less.  Is 
not  that  within,  or  at  least,  is  not  that  where  it 
should  be  found?  InStead  of  arguing  for  a  New 
Jerusalem  somewhere  in  the  skies,  whose  gates 
are  pearl  and  whose  Streets  are  paved  with  gold, 
why  do  not  men  seek  to  spiritualize  their  thought, 
and  thereby  find  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  be  within 
their  own  consciousness,  within  themselves? 

Who  are  to  see  this  Kingdom?  **The  pure  in 
heart  shall  see  God."  Those  who  accept  this 
great  Truth  and  apply  it  faithfully,  to  the  utter 
extinction  of  every  thought  that  denies  the  om- 
nipotence of  God,  shall  ultimately  attain  unto 
that  spiritual  consciousness    which    is  perfectly 

162 


JEAN    EVARTS 

harmonious,  and  which  is  Heaven.  It  is  right 
thinking  that  does  it,  and  only  the  right  thinker 
can  become  pure  in  heart.  There  is  no  other  way 
given  unto  men.  Jesus  specified  the  great  reward 
— but  he  did  not  fail  to  specify,  likewise,  the  con- 
ditions on  which  it  is  to  be  obtained. 

Jesus  judged  not  according  to  appearances. 
The  mortal  man  is  a  man  of  appearances.  Jesus 
knew  that  that  which  was  called  man,  that  which 
the  five  physical  senses  were  supposed  to  say  was 
man,  was  really  something  wholly  foreign  to 
God's  Man,  and  that  this  appearance  would 
have  to  be  put  out  of  consciousness  before  the 
real  Man  could  appear.  Regardless  of  the  so- 
called  te^imony  of  the  physical  senses,  he  knew 
that  where  mortal  men  were  supposed  to  be,  right 
there  in  reality  were  the  real  Men,  the  real  chil- 
dren of  God.  He  knew  that  the  physical  concep- 
tion of  man  was  an  association  of  wrong  beliefs 
— as  a  manife^ation  of  Truth  that  knows  all 
things,  he  mu^  have  known  this — and  he  knew 
that  these  beliefs  formed  the  human  man.  When 
a  sick  man  was  brought  to  him  for  help,  he  wailed 
no  time  making  a  diagnosis  of  symptoms,  but 
went  right  at  the  heart  of  the  matter  and  ca^  out 
the  demon  of  false  belief  that  was  being  mani- 
fested as  disease.  He  never  hunted  for  life  within 
the  body.  He  knew  that  matter  was  a  mental 
thing,  and  that  it  could  never  hold  within  itself 
the  issues  of  life.  He  said,  ''Take  no  thought  for 
the  body,"  for  he  knew  the  effe6ts  of  thought 
reding  upon  the  human  concept    of    body.     He 

163 


THE  DIARY  OF 

never  gave  drugs  to  heal  disease,  because  he  knew 
that  drugs  possessed  only  the  power  that  mortal 
beliefs  conceded  to  them.  Moreover,  faith  in 
drugs  is  lack  of  faith  in  God  as  the  only  Power, 
and  this  is  sin,  and  itself  the  cause  of  discord  and 
disease.  He  used  great  common  sense  and  suf- 
fered many  things  to  be  so  for  the  time,  but  never 
once  did  he  make  any  concession  to  error  in  any 
form,  shape  or  manner  when  error  seemed  to 
make  a  claim  to  life  and  power. 

Finally,  Jesus  was  in  possession  of  a  tremen- 
dous secret,  namely,  the  understanding  of  the 
power  of  thought.  He  reduced  everything  to  a 
mental  plane.  He  said  that  to  think  evil  was 
equivalent  to  doing  it.  He  knew  that  thoughts 
tend  to  become  manifesfted,  and  that  to  hold  an 
evil  thought  is,  sooner  or  later,  to  see  that  thought 
externalized  in  some  form  of  evil  deed  or  discord- 
ant condition.  He  knew  that  thinking  led  to  a6tion, 
and  that  all  thought  brought  forth  fruit  after  its 
own  kind. 


''Never  since  the  beginning  of  recorded  his- 
tory," said  my  friend,  rising  and  landing  where 
the  sun  made  his  face  to  shine,  even  as  I  thought 
the  face  of  Moses  must  have  shone  when  he  wi^ 
not,  ''have  the  churches  been  called  upon  as  they 
are  today  to  defend  their  fundamental  do6trines, 
whether  as  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures,  or  as  form- 
ulated by  theologians.  The  founders  of  Chri^ian 
belief  have  been  looked  upon  as  impo^ors,  or  as 

164 


JEAN    EVARTS 

lionet  but  deluded  fanatics;  and  the  growth  of 
ChriiStianity  is  regarded  by  many  as  a  gradual 
evolution  through  the  ordinary  forces  that  oper- 
ate in  the  world.  And  so  we  ask,  did  Jesus  tell 
the  truth!  And  was  he  correctly  reported?  Cer- 
tainly there  is  no  written  record  that  he  taught 
these  things  in  jusl  the  way  they  have  been  pre- 
sented to  you.  But  no  written  record  is  necessary, 
for  his  mighty  deeds  were  wrought  upon  a  Prin- 
ciple that  is  beginning  to  be  underwood  by  us 
today,  and  we  who  do  grasp  it  in  part  are  able  to 
bring  forth  fruit  commensurate  with  our  under- 
handing.  Of  this  I  think  you  have  had  some 
proof." 

Some  proof!  0  Father  divine,  my  only  prayer 
is  that  Thou  wilt  give  me  even  such  under^anding 
as  this  man  has,  that  my  life  may  be  consecrated 
to  refle6ting  Thee  as  Love,  infinite  Harmony, 
infinite  Good! 


165 


MAY  22ND 


MAY  22ND 


s 


in  shadow." 


S  we  look  at  those  di^ant  peaks 
across  the  valley,"  began  my 
friend  this  morning,  ''we  see  that 
the  highe^  have  caught  the  fir^ 
beams  of  the  morning  sun,  while 
the  valley  below  is  §lill  submerged 


So  it  is  with  the  minds  of  men.  Those  that  are 
highest  in  the  scale  of  spirituality  are  the  fir^  to 
catch  the  unfolding  of  spiritual  things.  That 
mind  is  highe^  spiritually  that  has  lo§t  mo^  in 
mareriality.  The  minds  that  are  mo^  clearly 
attuned  to  the  infinite  Mind  are  the  fir§t  to  refle6t 
Truth. 

Religious  hi^ory  reveals  a  gradual  unfolding 
of  the  true  idea  of  God  and  His  Creation.  The 
BibJe  is  a  record  of  this  unfoldment  in  the  minds 
of  men  and  its  effe6ts  upon  them.  It  culminates 
in  the  final  development  of  this  idea  as  Love,  the 
divine  Father,  whom  Jesus  expressed,  and  taught 
his  followers  to  know  and  reflect. 

If  men  had  retained  what  they  learned  from 
Jesus,  it  would  have  saved  retracing  the  long  and 
weary  road  that  leads  back  to  Truth.  If  the  spirit- 
ual interpretation  of  his  sayings  had  not  been 
perverted,  the  old  pagan  philosophy  would  not 
have  asserted  itself  again,  and  its  modern  off- 
shoots would  have  found  no  soil  in  which  to  grow. 

But  not  many  years  after  he  had  left  the  world 
we  find  darkness  again  creeping  over  the  human 

169 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

mind.  The  ^ern  warning  of  James  went  un- 
heeded. Faith  became  separated  from  works, 
belief  superseded  demon^ration,  and  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Jesus  gradually  became  a  theory,  in 
many  respe6ts  less  attractive  than  oriental  mysti- 
cism. In  the  third  century  it  had  begun  to  break 
again^  the  metaphysical  subtleties  elaborated  by 
the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers  out  of  the  simple 
precepts  of  Jesus.  By  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
it  had  lost  its  power  to  heal  the  sick ;  and  a  century 
later  saw  the  full  flower  of  scholastic  philosophy, 
human  speculation,  and  theological  dogma. 

Out  of  this  materialistic  magma  there  began  to 
crystallize  a  religious  syStem,  whose  supreme 
head,  arrogating  to  itself  infallibility  and  the  pre- 
tentious title  of  pontiff  maximus,  claimed  to  be 
the  vicegerent  of  the  gentle  and  spiritually  minded 
Jesus.  This  church  waxed  Strong  in  temporal 
power  and  authority  over  the  minds  of  mortals, 
but  its  spirituality  caSt  only  a  flickering  gleam 
through  the  blackness  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

In  the  course  of  time  generations  of  scholars 
arose,  who  pursued  with  great  zeal  the  Study  of 
the  Bible ;  but  always  from  either  a  purely  liter- 
ary Standpoint,  or  with  the  assumed  limitations  of 
Christianity  guiding  their  efforts.  Little  was  done 
by  the  thousands  of  theologians  and  expositors  of 
the  Bible  to  make  its  teachings  practical  in  the 
senile  that  Jesus  made  pra6tical  his  words  when 
he  unfolded  the  Truth  of  Being.  The  critical 
faculty  in  men's  minds  became  acutely  sensitive, 
and  material  theories  were  loudly  demanded  in 

170 


JEAN   EVARTS 

support  of  spiritual  truths.  Dogma  succeeded 
dogma,  and  dissensions  waxed  loud  and  bitter 
over  trivial  points  of  do6trine.  Speculation  over- 
leaped all  bounds ;  extravagant  theological  con- 
ceptions became  the  diversion  of  the  human  mind ; 
and  pageantry,  pomp,  and  dead  ceremony  suc- 
ceeded living  faith  and  its  demon^rations. 
Schisms  followed,  the  Holy  Church  was  torn 
asunder,  and  pr etching  denominations  fell  to 
persecuting  one  another  because  of  differences  in 
interpretation  of  the  letter  of  Chri^ianity. 

The  elements  of  religion  as  they  are  presented 
to  us  today  in  the  orthodox  faith  include  the  con- 
ception of  God  as  the  Creator  of  all  things.  Out 
of  the  du^  of  the  ground  He  is  supposed  to  have 
formed  man  in  His  own  image  and  likeness.  He 
con^ituted  him  Lord  of  the  earth,  and  gave  him 
the  gift  of  free-will,  the  ability  to  choose  between 
good  and  evil.  But  man  soon  abused  this  dubious 
gift,  and  thereby  fell  under  the  bondage  of  sin 
and  death.  God  then  covenants  with  him  to  par- 
don his  sins,  if  he  will  fulfil  certain  conditions.  A 
Messiah  is  promised,  and  in  due  time  he  comes  as 
Jesus  the  Chri^.  The  earlier  idea  of  God  as  an 
angry  Father,  who  demands  the  sacrifice  of  His 
Son  in  expiation  of  the  world's  sins,  has  largely 
been  abandoned.  Jesus  makes  his  atonement  vol- 
untarily, and  as  representative  of  the  human  race 
offers  up  to  God  expiation  on  behalf  of  all  sinful 
men.  God  accepts  this  sacrifice,  and  e^ablishes  a 
material  pledge  of  repentance,  baptism  with 
water.     Sinners  repent,  are  converted  and  bap- 

171 


THE  DIARY  OF 

tised,  and  then,  by  observing  the  rite  of  Com- 
munion, renew  their  covenant  \vith  God.  Death 
is  the  penalty  incurred  by  man  for  his  wilful  dis- 
obedience, for  having  been  given  the  power  to 
choose  either  good  or  evil,  he  chose  evil.  Death 
is  not  only  for  the  body,  but  for  the  soul  which 
does  not  repent  and  turn  from  its  sinful  practices. 
The  consummation,  whether  of  life  or  death,  lies 
beyond  the  grave ;  and  the  eternal  future  of  man- 
kind follows  a  Judgment  which  Chri^  will  pass 
upon  all  men,  for  all  mu^  appear  before  his 
throne  on  the  Day  of  Judgment.  This  awful  day 
is  preceded  by  the  general  resurrection  of  the 
dead  at  Chris's  second  coming.  Those  who  die 
impenitent  will  enter  into  eternal  punishment; 
the  redeemed  receive  the  gift  of  immortality  and 
unending  bliss.  The  problems  of  evil  and  suffer- 
ing, how  they  can  exist  and  continue  to  oppose  the 
Almighty,  are  allowed  to  remain  unsolved  for  us, 
in  order  to  Simulate  faith.  Afflictions  come  upon 
us  that  we  may  be  tried  and  purified  through 
their  disciplinary  effects.  As  to  physical  truths, 
God  in  His  wisdom  and  goodness  has  left  us  to 
find  these  out  by  the  use  of  the  powers  He  has 
bestowed  upon  us,  for  by  such  research  the  human 
faculties  are  exercised  and  trained. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  modern  ortliodox  inter- 
pretation of  the  theology  of  Jesus.  It  is  with  the 
limitations  imposed  upon  men  by  this  orthodox 
theology  that  they  liave  essayed  to  preach  the 
gospel  to  the  uttermo^  parts  of  the  earth.  Little 
wonder  tliat  the   realm  of  the   spiritual  has  re- 

172 


JEAN    EVAETS 

mained  a  va^  region,  unexplored,  all  but  un- 
known, awaiting  a  discoverer  with  sufficient  faith 
to  penetrate  beyond  its  shore  line. 

With  the  loss  of  spirituality  in  the  early  cen- 
turies of  the  Chri^ian  era  came  also  the  loss  of 
healing  power,  for  healing  is  the  process  of  re- 
moving from  the  human  consciousness  the  con- 
cepts that  have  been  formed  there  by  false 
thought,  and  substituting  true  concepts  for  them. 
A  va^  amount  of  thinking  has  been  done  about 
God,  but  it  has  been  human  thinking.  In  its  at- 
tempts to  define  its  concept  of  a  personal  God,  the 
human  mind  has  lo^  itself,  as  Spencer  has  said, 
in  labyrinths  of  language  and  logic.  Human 
thinking  is  not  the  a6livity  of  God's  thought,  and 
does  not  reflect  Him.  Speculation  is  not  thinking, 
for  it  is  not  based  upon  real  knowledge.  From 
the  third  century  down  to  our  own,  men's  thinking 
has  been  almo^  entirely  speculative  and  along 
material  lines.  A  mortal  may  claim  to  think  about 
God,  but  as  long  as  he  is  ignorant  of  the  spiritual 
natare,  not  only  of  God,  but  of  Man  himself  and 
the  entire  Universe,  he  is  not  thinking  God's 
thoughts,  and  the  activity  that  constitutes  his  con- 
sciousness is  not  the  activity  of  true  thought,  and 
therefore  does  not  refle6t  spirituality.  Since  God 
is  omnipotent,  every  thought  of  His  has  Omnipo- 
tence back  of  it.  Where  it  is,  God  is ;  and  where 
it  is,  false  thought  cannot  be.  It  was  this  great 
truth  that  was  loSt  to  men  during  the  firSt  three 
centuries  after  ChriSl.  It  was  this  great  truth 
that  was  buried  beneath  the  duSt  and  rubbish  of 

173 


THE  DIARY  OF 

materialism  and  human  speculation,  hidden  by 
the  religious  sy^ems  of  the  ages,  the  pantheistic 
forms  of  worship,  the  adoration  of  virgin  and 
saints,  and  all  the  ceremonial  and  show  that  was 
massed  high  to  my^ify  and  astonish  the  credulous 
mortal  mind  and  conceal  the  barrenness,  the 
emptiness  and  dearth  of  real  power  within. 

During  the  many  centuries  that  have  passed 
since  Jesus  walked  wdth  men,  the  Truth  that  he 
taught  has  been  ever  present.  He  said,  "Heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not 
pass  away."  Again,  he  knew  w^hereof  he  spoke. 
From  time  to  time  there  have  been  minds  that 
have  Struggled  up  through  the  debris  of  material 
thought  sufficiently  to  catch  some  faint  gleams  of 
the  Light  of  Truth,  and  to  become  convinced  that 
it  had  never  been  extinguished,  but  that  it  was 
shining  in  all  its  fulness  beyond  the  miSt  that  has 
darkened  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Finally,  in  our  own  day,  there  was  found  a 
mind  so  receptive  of  spiritual  things  that  it 
caught  the  true  import  of  Jesus 's  teachings  as  no 
one  since  apostolic  times  has  ever  done.  So  at- 
tuned to  the  infinite  Mind,  so  transparent  and 
clear  that  the  Light  of  Truth,  impelled  by  the 
energy  of  the  infinite  Sun  of  Truth,  was  able  to 
penetrate  it,  this  consciousness  became  a  refle6tor 
of  divine  reality  to  all  the  world  about  it.  To 
mortal  thought  this  mind  was  a  woman.  Like  her 
fellow  beings,  she  had  early  sought  God.  Like 
them,  too,  she  had  prayed  to  be  delivered  from  the 
ills  that  had  seemed  to  affli6t  her.     The  sublime 

174 


JEAN    EVAETS 

faith  that  supported  her  in  her  search  for  Truth 
carried  her  even  to  the  gateway  of  death;  and 
there,  with  the  darkness  fa^  gathering  around 
her,  it  lifted  the  veil  of  matter  from  before  her 
eager  vision  and  revealed  the  sublime  Truth  of 
the  reality  of  God  and  the  unreality  and  power- 
lessness  of  all  that  is  unlike  Him. 

All  Truth  comes  from  the  Source  of  Truth  to 
the  human  mind  as  a  revelation.  It  does  not  come 
as  te^imony  of  the  five  physical  senses;  nor  can 
it  find  a  permanent  abiding  place  in  the  human 
consciousness  until  it  has  displaced  its  opposite 
falsity.  The  human  mind,  as  we  have  said  before, 
is  inherently  false,  and  could  never  by  itself  come 
to  any  knowledge  of  Truth.  Jesus  ^ated  this 
when  he  said, ' '  No  man  can  come  to  me  except  the 
Father  which  hath  sent  me  draw  him. ' '  No  man 
can  come  to  Truth  except  God  draw  him.  This 
does  not  imply  any  sele61;ive  a6lion  on  God's  part, 
as  was  so  falsely  believed  for  centuries  in  the  par- 
alyzing do6lrine  of  foreordination,  but  means 
simply  that  it  is  God  himself  w^ho  sends  a  knowl- 
ed^'e  of  Truth  into  the  darkened  human  mind. 
Paul  says,  ''God,  who  commanded  the  light  to 
shine  out  of  darkness,  hath  shined  in  our  hearts, 
to  give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of 
God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Chri^."  And  he  adds, 
''But  we  have  this  treasure  in  earthen  vessels, 
that  the  excellency  of  the  power  may  be  of  God, 
and  not  of  us." 

We  have  seen  that  mortals  are  complex  in 
nature,  for  they  simulate  the  infinite  variety  of 

175 


THE  DIARY  OF 

infinite  Mind.  They  simulate  all  the  attributes  of 
Mind,  and  pose  as  its  image  and  refle6tion.  That 
their  faculties  are  not  all  mortal  is  due  to  the 
great  fa6t  that  Truth  cannot  be  entirely  obscured 
or  prevented  from  penetrating  even  the  density 
of  mortal  consciousness.  Were  God  not  at  all 
present  in  the  human  mind,  it  would  not  have 
even  a  simulated  exigence.  The  human  con- 
sciousness becomes  aware  through  sense-percep- 
tion of  the  exigence  of  Life,  Truth,  Mind,  and  in 
a  feeble  way  it  becomes  capable  of  recognizing 
these  things.  This  is  the  result  of  Truth  at  work 
in  the  human  mind.  Always  it  is  Truth  that  enters 
the  human  mentality  and  begins  its  a6tivity  there, 
for  the  human  mind  has  no  power  or  ability  of  its 
own.  The  fir^l  gleams  of  Truth  having  entered 
the  mind,  the  work  of  expansion  and  emptying  the 
consciousness  of  false  thought  is  begun.  This  we 
call  ** grasping  the  Truth."  But  it  implies  no 
ability  whatsoever  on  the  part  of  the  false  human 
mentality.  It  is  the  Truth  itself  that  does  the 
work.  But  for  the  presence  of  what  little  Truth 
it  may  contain  within  itself,  the  human  mind 
would  be  wholly  mortal.  The  term  "mortal  mind" 
is  applied,  §trielly,  to  that  part  of  the  human  con- 
sciousness that  is  false.  But  when  human  love, 
human  reason,  human  desires,  and  human  will 
come  under  the  influence  of  divine  Love,  Under- 
^aiidiiig,  and  Truth,  the  human  elements  dis- 
appear. It  was  such  a  mind  as  this,  from  which 
much  of  the  merely  human  had  disappeared,  that 
recognized  the  spiritual  significance  of  the  teach- 

176 


JEAN    EVARTS 

ings  of  Jesus,  and  that  became  the  channel 
through  which  primitive  Chri^ianity  was  re^ored 
to  mankind. 

If  God  is  Spirit,  omnipotent,  omniscient,  omni- 
present, and  omnibeneficent,  the  only  Cause  and 
Creator,  the  Principle  of  all  Being,  Truth  itself, 
it  logically  follows  that  He  would  create  a  Uni- 
verse that  would  reflect  His  own  characteristics, 
and  not  their  opposites.  The  Universe  and  Man 
are  therefore  spiritual  and  eternal,  not  material 
and  temporal.  This  is  Truth,  and  if  mortals  will 
realize  it  and  apply  it  persistently,  all  sin,  sick- 
ness, death,  and  matter  will  gradually  be  put  out 
of  consciousness,  and  the  mortal  consciousness 
itself  will  cease  to  be,  for  all  will  then  have  *Hhat 
Mind  which  was  in  ChriSt."  Orthodox  theology 
is  a  misinterpretation  of  Jesus 's  teachings.  God 
did  create  Man,  and  gave  him  absolute  freedom, 
free-wdll  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term,  the  re- 
flection of  God's  own  free  will.  But  since  God  is 
infinite  Good,  Man  could  not  possibly  exercise  the 
faculty  of  free-will  to  the  extent  of  knowing  that 
which  is  not  and  could  not  be.  Man  can  know  God, 
but  he  cannot  know  anything  else,  for  God  is  in- 
finite. If  Man  could  know  evil,  God,  as  infinite 
Creator,  muSt  have  firSt  created  evil.  But  evil  is 
error,  the  dire6t  opposite  of  Truth.  There  is 
nothing  in  Truth  out  of  which  to  make  evil,  for 
error  cannot  proceed  from  Truth.  The  world  of 
human  thought  may  believe  that  it  can  know  evil, 
but  "The  wisdom  of  the  world  is  foolishness  with 
God." 

177 


THE  DIARY  OF 

It  was  these  truths  that  flowed  into  the  clear, 
receptive  mind  that  is  known  to  mortals  as  Mary 
Baker  Eddy;  and  it  is  the  development  of  them, 
Parting  with  the  major  premise  of  God's  infini- 
tude, that  she  has  given  to  mankind,  in  language 
that  they  can  underhand,  in  her  book,  Science  and 
Health,  With  Key  to  the  Scriptures. 

Again,  we  must  remember  that  it  is  Truth  with 
which  we  are  vitally  concerned,  and  not  the  chan- 
nel through  which  it  may  come  to  us.  In  reading 
a  text  book  on  mathematical  subje6ts  we  are  not 
concerned  with  the  book  itself,  the  channel 
through  which  its  contents  seem  to  be  conveyed 
to  us,  but  with  the  truth  which  we  hope  to  find 
therein.  It  is  not  the  hi^oricity  of  the  man  Jesus 
that  is  vital  to  us,  but  what  he  taught.  His  per- 
sonal hi^ory  would  be  interesting,  and  we  would 
be  glad  to  have  it  in  detail,  but  the  human  con- 
cepts of  his  daily  life  are  not  essential,  nor  would 
they  have  the  slighted  bearing  on  the  Truth  which 
he  was  the  means  of  bringing  to  the  human  con- 
sciousness. So,  as  she  herself  has  frequently 
urged,  Mrs.  Eddy's  personality  and  human  his- 
tory, though  of  intere^,  have  no  bearing  on  the 
Truth  which  she  has  restored  to  us.  It  is  the 
Truth  with  which  we  are  concerned;  and  we  are 
urged  to  te^  it  in  the  way  she  has  teSled  it,  and 
prove  its  nature,  even  as  Paul  admonished  his 
followers  to  ** prove  all  things."  In  reading  a 
text  book  on  mathematics  we  accept  nothing  with- 
out rigidly  demonstrating  its  truth.  Even  so  with 
the  Truth  Jesus  taught,  and  which  has  been  pre- 

178 


JEAN    EVARTS 

sented  to  us  again  by  Mrs.  Eddy,  we  are  asked  to 
accept  nothing  without  demon^rating  its  essen- 
tial nature. 

We  have  said  that  Truth  comes  to  the  human 
consciousness  only  as  a  revelation  from  tlie  Source 
of  Truth.  The  mind  of  the  mathematician  becomes 
so  attuned  to  things  mathematical  that  they  How 
into  his  consciousness  as  revelations  of  Truth. 
They  were  not  in  his  consciousness  before,  nor 
would  the  human  consciousness  ever  contain  them, 
did  they  not  come  in  from  without.  That  which 
flows  into  the  human  consciousness  does  so  be- 
cause that  consciousness  is  attuned  to  it.  This  is 
what  has  been  ^ated  in  various  modern  philos- 
ophies as  ''the  law  of  attra6tion,  like  attracting 
like."  It  is  the  law  of  receptivity,  for  Truth  is 
revealed  to  that  mind  which  is  receptive  to  it,  and 
the  degree  of  the  revelation  depends  upon  the  de- 
gree of  receptivity  of  the  mind. 

The  mind,  or  consciousness,  that  we  knoTP"  as 
Mrs.  Eddy  was  receptive  to  things  spiritual  tc  a 
much  greater  degree  than  any  other  mind  has 
been  since  the  fir^  century  after  Christ.  From 
childhood  her  mental  a6tivity  had  been  such  as  to 
prepare  her  mind  for  the  influx  of  Truth.  The 
law  operated,  as  it  could  not  but  operate,  and  the 
spiritual  import  of  Jesus 's  teachings  came  to  her 
clearly.  Like  the  impotent  man  whom  Jesus 
healed,  she  rose  from  her  bed  re^ored  to  healti. 

Wliy  this  should  seem  a^onishing  to  mankind 
is  difficult  to  comprehend,  when  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  the  mathematician,  the  musician,  the 

179 


THE  DIARY  OF 

archite6t,  the  engineer,  in  fa6l,  every  conscientious 
searcher  who  succeeds  in  finding  the  Truth,  arises 
from  his  work  restored,  the  Truth  having  cleared 
away  from  his  consciousness  all  false  concepts 
and  erroneous  thought  that  seemed  to  prevent 
him  from  solving  his  problem.  The  restoration 
which  Truth  eft'e6ts  is  manife^ed  in  the  corre6t 
solution  of  the  problem. 

Mrs.  Eddy's  problem  was  one  of  physical  dis- 
ease ;  but  it  was  no  less  a  problem  for  that  reason. 
When  she  grasped  the  Principle  of  harmonious 
Being,  ^ated  in  terms  of  God's  allness,  and  the 
consequent  nothingness  of  whatever  seems  to  be 
unlike  Him,  there  was  swept  from  her  conscious- 
ness the  false  concepts  of  a  power  opposed  to  God ; 
and  when  they  were  gone  the  manifestation,  the 
outward  accompaniment,  called  disease,  had  to 
disappear  likewise,  for  there  remained  nothing 
for  it  to  re^  upon. 

An  essential  component  of  the  human  mind  is 
the  critical  faculty.  It  never  criticises  what  it 
understands,  and  therefore  never  criticises  Truth. 
But  it  heajjs  criticism  upon  its  concepts  of  things 
that  do  not  accord  with  its  own  materialistic 
thought.  It  loudly  denounces  its  own  ideas  of 
things  that  it  does  not  understand.  And  when 
Mrs.  Eddy  joyfully  announced  to  the  world  the 
great  Truth  that  had  come  into  her  consciousness, 
the  human  mind  ^ood  agha§t  at  what  it  called  her 
audacity.  Had  she  been  the  one  to  announce  the 
discovery  of  a  so-called  law  of  matter,  the  world 
would  have  acclaimed  her.    But  to  refute  modem 

ISO 


JEAN    EVARTS 

theological  beliefs,  to  expose  the  hidden  workings 
of  the  human  consciousness,  to  assert  the  living 
presence  of  the  Chri^  Principle  in  our  own  day, 
and,  above  all,  to  insi^  that  disease  and  all  the  in- 
harmony  of  life  could  be  eradicated  by  an  intelli- 
gent application  of  that  Principle,  was  a  shock  to 
the  human  mind  that  opened  wide  the  portals  of 
its  wrath  and  called  down  upon  the  head  of  this 
good  woman,  whose  heart  was  throbbing  with  love 
for  poor,  tired  humanity,  such  vituperation  and 
calumny  as  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  no  human 
being  since  the  patient  Jesus  ^ood  before  his  re- 
vilers  and  prayed,  ^*  Father,  forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do. ' ' 

Again  and  again  she  claimed  no  power  of  her 
own.  Again  and  again  she  said  that  of  herself 
she  could  do  nothing,  but  that  it  was  the  Christ 
Principle  that  healed  the  sick  and  raised  the  dying 
— in  other  words,  that  what  she  gave  to  the  world 
was  what  had  come  into  her  consciousness  as  a 
revelation  of  Truth,  and  that,  as  Truth,  the  world 
could  demon^rate  its  actuality.  Insistently  she 
urged  that  this  was  not  another  addition  to  the 
many  human  philosophies  that  have  left  mankind 
branded  upon  the  sands  of  disappointed  hopes. 
With  the  greate^  clearness  she  pointed  out  the 
di§^in6tion  between  this  and  mesmerism,  mental 
suggestion,  hypnotism,  man-made  creeds,  the  mod- 
ern theological  misinterpretations  of  Jesus 's  the- 
ology, and  all  the  mass  of  human  beliefs  that  have 
infe^ed  the  mortal  consciousness  and  obscured 
the  Light  of  Truth.    Continually  she  directed  the 

181 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

human  thought  away  from  herself  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus,  and  urged  that  mankind  follow  her 
only  as  she  followed  him,  and  that  every  ^ep  of 
the  way  should  be  proven.  She  herself  proved 
the  truth  of  this  revelation,  and  called  it  the 
science  of  Chri^ianity,  or  Christian  Science.  For 
if  science  is  '' ascertained  truth  or  fa(5ts,"  and  if 
she  had  in  her  possession  the  ascertained  truth  or 
fa6ts  regarding  Chri^ianity,  she  rightly  named 
her  discovery  Chri^ian  Science.  Tirelessly  she 
labored  to  prove  the  truth  of  her  revelation,  and 
having  done  so,  to  ^ate  its  Principle  in  such  lan- 
guage as  could  be  grasped  by  the  human  mind. 
The  mission  of  her  book  in  which  she  has  done 
this  may  be  ^ated  in  Wyolif 's  apt  translation  of 
Luke  1:77,  '*To  zeue  science  and  helthe  to  his 
puple:  in  remyssioun  of  hir  synnes." 

What  was  her  motive?  Love.  It  was  Love 
that  filled  her  thought  and  inspired  her  deeds.  It 
was  Love  that  animated  her  words  and  made 
radiant  her  motives.  It  was  Love  that  she  re- 
fle6ted  to  the  weary  world.  It  was  Love  that  con- 
^tuted  her  soul,  her  life,  the  essence  of  her  being. 
It  was  God  himself,  as  Love,  that  was  revealed  in 
her  pure  thought,  and  it  was  His  thought  that  she 
crystallized  in  the  writings  which  she  has  given 
to  her  fellow  men.  Does  Love  inspire  hatred  and 
malice?  Does  Truth  give  rise  to  misunder^and- 
ings?  No,  but  Love  and  Truth  ^ir  up  their  oppo- 
sites  in  the  human  mentality,  in  order  to  cast 
them  out.  This,  again,  is  the  wonderful  working 
of  Love,  that  it  re^s  not  until  it  has  set  the  im- 

182 


JEAN    EVARTS 

prisoned  thought  free  and  reca^  it  in  the  mould 
of  Truth.  It  was  inevitable  that  Love  and  Truth 
should  ^ir  up  whatever  of  unreality  lay  hidden  in 
the  minds  of  mortals,  to  ca^  it  out,  that  true  con- 
cepts might  be  formed  there  and  the  ''salvation 
of  the  Lord"  appear. 

Her  followers  are  those  whom  she  has  pointed 
away  from  herself  to  the  living  Chri^.  They  are 
co-followers  with  her,  co-workers  in  the  great 
labor  of  refle6ting  infinite  Mind.  She  bade  men 
forget  her,  but  remember  Chri^.  She  taught  them 
to  lean  not  upon  her  personality,  but  upon  the 
infinite  Truth  that  sustained  her  and  all  who  ca§t 
their  burdens  upon  it.  Her  work  was  universal 
and  for  all  mankind.  It  was  for  all  time,  for  it 
was  a  rei^toration  in  the  minds  of  men  of  the 
Christianity  of  Jesus,  who  said,  '' — but  my  words 
shall  not  pass  away."  She  proved  the  truth  of 
his  words,  and  left  the  world  infallible  rules  for 
doing  likewise.  Ignorant  criticism  and  abuse  and 
the  haSly  and  narrow  verdi6l  of  small  minds  are 
of  as  little  avail  now  as  in  the  time  of  Jesus.  What 
applies  to  him  applies  with  equal  force  to  her :  if 
she  has  told  the  truth,  her  teachings  will  ^and  the 
teSt  of  demon^ration.  If  what  she  has  given  to 
the  world  is  not  true,  then  it  mu^  fall  under  such 
te§l,  and  the  cry  of  ''Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephes- 
ians"  will  not  be  necessary. 


"But,  as  Jesus  told  his  followers  that  every 
man  mu^  do  his  own  work, ' '  concluded  my  friend, 

183 


THE  DIARY  OF 

*'so  Mrs.  Eddy  has  told  mankind  that  salvation 
from  the  ills  of  humanity  is  individual,  and  muSl 
come  through  individual  effort.  To  this  end  she 
has  given  the  Avorld  her  writings,  and  especially 
her  book,  Science  and  Health,  With  Key  to  the 
Scriptures,  that  each  may  learn  for  himself  how 
to  apply  the  infinite  Principle  to  his  own  human 
needs.  I  have  brought  you  a  copy  of  this  book. 
It  contains  the  ^atement  of  that  revelation  which 
we  have  been  approaching  in  our  talks,  and  to 
which  we  have  finally  come.  I  told  you  that  all  my 
talks  were  based  upon  it,  and  that  when  we  had 
reached  it  we  would  turn  back  and  place  the  credit 
where  it  belongs.  All  the  understanding  that  I 
have  of  God  as  infinite  Principle  has  been  gained 
through  a  study  of  this  book.  All  that  has  been 
done  for  you  through  me  as  a  channel  for  the 
mauife^ation  of  infinite  Mind  has  been  made  pos- 
sible by  whatever  under^anding  I  have  of  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  as  spiritually  interpreted  in 
this  work.  The  terms  which  we  have  used  in  our 
talks  to  express  God,  such  as  Principle,  Life, 
Truth,  Love,  Soul,  Spirit,  Mind,  are  the  terms 
Mrs.  Eddy  first  used,  and  you  will  find  them  in 
this  book.  All  of  the  ideas  which  I  have  given  you 
and  which  have  been  developed  in  our  talks,  and 
which  will  be  further  discussed  until  this  message 
has  been  fully  unfolded  to  you,  have  come  from 
Mrs.  Eddy's  teachings,  from  her  writings,  or 
from  the  writings  of  her  followers.  All  that  I 
have  said  in  leading  up  to  this  revelation  has  been 
to  prepare  you,  in  a  measure,  to  receive  it;  for 

184 


JEAN    EVARTS 

your  thought  was  rebellious  and  resentful  of 
things  spiritual  when  I  found  you,  and  it  seemed 
be^  to  begin  our  talks  with  what  you  were  willing 
to  admit  into  your  thought.  And  so  we  began  to 
reason  from  effect  back  to  cause,  from  the  ma- 
terial phenomenon  back  to  spiritual  Cause,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  much  like  reasoning  from  a 
moving  picture  back  to  the  original.  And  yet, 
even  on  such  a  basis  of  reasoning,  it  seemed  to  us 
that  we  mu^  admit  the  real  Universe  to  be  spirit- 
ual, mental,  and  its  Creator  to  be  infinite  men- 
tality, divine  Mind. 

Mrs.  Eddy  states  her  premise  in  what  she  has 
called  the  'Scientific  Statement  of  Being,'  (Science 
and  Health,  page  468)  as  'All  is  infinite  Mind  and 
its  infinite  Manif elation ; '  and  with  this  as  a 
Parting  point  she  reasons  accurately  from  Cause 
to  effe6t,  from  God  to  His  perfe6t,  spiritual  Uni- 
verse and  spiritual  Man.  Having  ^ated  the 
Principle  and  drawn  her  conclusions  logically 
from  it,  she  applied  the  supreme  te^,  that  of  rigid 
demon^ration,  and  proved  the  Truth  of  her  major 
premise. 

You  have  learned  enough  of  the  Principle  it 
interprets,  and  have  seen  enough  of  the  working 
of  this  Principle,  to  enable  you  to  read  the  book 
now  without  prejudice.  The  operation  of  the 
Principle  has  been  revealed  to  you  in  re^ored 
health.  From  the  day  I  found  you  here,  hopeless 
and  alone,  I  have  used  for  you  the  under^anding 
I  have  gained  from  this  book,  and  the  result  has 
been  that  the  former  concept  of  disease  w^hich 

185 


THE  DIARY  OF 

seemed  to  be  manife^ing  itself  in  your  conscious 
experience  has  given  way  to  a  better  concept  of 
health  and  greater  freedom,  and  you  have 
emerged  in  a  degree  from  the  bondage  of  false 
beliefs. 

Tonight  read  the  fir^  chapter,  Prayer.  I  could 
tell  you  of  cases  where  those  suffering  from  seem- 
ingly incurable  disease  have  seen  their  affli6lions 
disappear,  vanish  into  their  native  nothingness, 
while  reading  this  chapter  alone.  I  have  seen  the 
chains  of  life-long  slavery  to  evil  habits,  to  rack- 
ing pain  from  contorted  members,  to  unspeakable 
agony  from  consuming  bodies,  drop  from  their 
X'^i6tims  when  the  receptive  thought  had  imbibed 
the  spiritual  import  of  this  clear  interpretation 
of  true  prayer.  When  you  have  read  it  I  am  sure 
you  will  underhand  why;  when  you  have  begun 
to  sound  its  profound  depths,  I  think  you  will 
begin  to  underhand  why  it  was  that  error  of 
every  name  and  nature  fled  before  the  mighty 
affirmations  of  God's  allness  which  Jesus  boldly 
voiced  whenever  confronted  by  manife^ations 
of  evil." 

The  we^ern  sky  had  begun  to  spread  an 
amber-crimson  pathway  for  the  sinking  sun,  and 
the  guardian  hills  were  drawing  their  purple 
mantles  about  them,  as  I  ^ill  sat  absorbed  in  my 
thought  of  the  wonderful  experiences  that  had 
come  into  my  life  in  the  pa§t  few  days.  I  was  glad 
to  be  alone  with  my  heart's  rapture,  to  rejoice  in 
the  peace  and  serenity  that  seemed  to  hover  in 
the  fragrant  air.  Marvel  of  marvels,  that  I  should 

186 


JEAN    EVARTS 

be  brought  here  to  die,  only  to  find  Life  itself! 
Wonder  of  wonders,  that  the  Father  who  had 
seemed  so  far  off  should  have  met  me  here  and 
folded  me  in  His  arms  of  love! 

The  soft  light  that  breamed  upward  in  the 
wake  of  the  departed  sun  suffused  the  gathering 
dusk  with  a  golden  glow,  and  faded ;  the  tree  tops 
nodded  sleepily  in  the  dying  breeze;  the  hum  of 
inse6l  life  sank  into  a  hush ;  and  the  noises  of  the 
world  became  a  memory.  Yet  I  lingered  in  the 
serene  solitude  of  my  revery,  as  night  deepened 
about  me;  and  it  was  only  when  the  searching 
moonbeams  had  found  me  out  that  I  consented  to 
turn  homeward  and  leave  the  day  sinking  iiito 
slumber  on  the  dewy  hills. 


187 


MAY  23RD 


MAY  23RD 


T  is  not  my  intention  to  quote  from 
Mrs.  Eddy's  writings,"  said  my 
friend,  when  we  had  seated  our- 
selves on  the  ledge  in  the  warm 
sunshine  of  the  radiant  spring 
morning,  ''with  the  thought  of 
attempting  any  explanation  or  elaboration  of  her 
words.  But  it  may  be  helpful  to  you  as  a  beginner 
in  the  great  task  of  working  out  your  salvation  if 
we  can  point  out  and  emphasize  some  of  the  truths 
that  she  has  developed  in  the  work  of  proving  the 
allness  of  God,  infinite  Good." 


From  time  immemorial,  men  have  prayed  to 
their  concept  of  Deity.  Jesus  urged  men  to  pray. 
In  his  remarkable  discourse  which  we  call  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  he  had  much  to  say  on  this 
subje6l.  But  he  also  said  a  great  deal  before  he 
came  to  the  question  of  prayer.  He  fir^  told  his 
hearers  that,  except  their  righteousness  exceeded 
that  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  they  should  in 
no  case  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Eight- 
eousness  is  right  condu6t,  based  upon  the  cause  of 
all  condu(5t,  thinking.  Therefore,  unless  men  think 
rignt,  they  can  not  bring  harmony  into  conscious 
experience.  The  right  kind  of  thought  about  God 
leads  to  right  prayer;  but  such  thought  contains 
no  element  of  materiality,  and  therefore  no  selfish- 
ness. It  is  the  kind  of  thought  that  does  not  limit 
God,  either  as  regards  His  ability  or  willingness 
to  bless  mankind.     The  thought,  therefore,  that 

191 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

enters  into  prayer  mu§t  be  thought  of  God  as 
omnipotent,  omniscient,  omnipresent,  and  omni- 
beneficent.  Such  a  God  does  not  have  to  be 
pleaded  with,  nor  in^ru6led  as  to  His  duty  toward 
mankind.  He  does  not  have  to  be  told  that  His 
children  need  certain  things,  for  He  knows  what 
they  need,  and,  moreover.  He  has  already  sup- 
plied these  needs.  God  could  not  be  God  if  He 
had  not  already  met  every  human  need,  every 
real  need  of  man  for  that  which  will  enable  him 
to  rise  out  of  materiality,  to  ''put  off  the  old  man, 
and  put  on  the  new. ' '  To  beg  God  to  grant  human 
desires  is  to  "ask  amiss."  The  human  mind  may 
know  what  it  wants,  but  it  cannot  know  what  it 
needs,  for  only  Wisdom  can  know  that.  God 
operates  according  to  Wisdom  and  true  Knowl- 
edge, and  not  according  to  human  opinions.  And 
it  is  well  for  mankind  that  He  does,  for  it  is  only 
a  too  common  experience  to  find  that  if  we  had 
been  given  the  things  we  prayed  for  in  our  ignor- 
ance and  selfishness,  we  would  have  been  made 
utterly  miserable. 

Our  conception  of  prayer  has  been  changed  by 
Mrs.  Eddy  from  one  of  pleading  to  a  prayer  of 
affirmation,  the  affirmation  that  God  is  All-in-all, 
and  that  therefore  our  true  wants  are  already 
supplied.  Knowing  that  because  of  God's  very 
nature  our  wants  for  that  which  is  necessary  are 
already  supplied,  results  in  this  knowledge  of 
supply  becoming  externalized  in  the  human  con- 
sciousness. It  is  the  working  of  the  same  law 
that  we  spoke  of  many  days  ago.    Every  thought 

192 


JEAN    EVARTS 

that  enters  the  human  consciousness  tends  to  be- 
come externalized  in  experience.  Therefore, 
thoughts  of  limitation,  or  of  God's  unwillingness 
to  meet  our  real  needs,  only  obscure  the  vision 
and  leave  us  ^ill  looking  at  these  falsities.  Like 
the  sun  that  is  continually  sending  out  its  light  in 
every  direction,  God  is  con^antly  pouring  out 
supply  of  every  sort  upon  all  mankind.  The  sun 
cannot  help  shining;  and  God  cannot  help  pouring 
out  blessings  upon  mankind,  because  He  is  infinite 
Good  and  mu^  express  Himself  in  the  a6tivity 
of  infinite  goodness.  But  when  clouds  are  over 
the  earth,  the  sun's  light  is  dimmed,  and  we  re- 
ceive only  a  portion  of  it.  So,  when  the  human 
consciousness  is  obscured  by  clouds  of  false  be- 
lief, God's  infinite  goodness  reaches  mankind  only 
in  small  part.  To  limit  our  thought  of  God  is  to 
limit  ourselves,  and  to  bring  out  limitation  in  our 
conscious  experience. 

True  prayer,  then,  as  Mrs.  Eddy  has  taught 
us,  is  prayer  of  affirmation;  and  such  prayer  is 
always  answered  by  the  working  of  the  invariable 
law  of  externalization  of  thought.  When  Jesus 
said,  ''To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,"  he  ^ated 
this  law :  that  within  the  consciousness  that  holds 
the  true  idea  of  God's  allness  shall  be  external- 
ized supply  in  abundance  for  every  real  need. 
But  righteousness  must  always  precede  prayer, 
right  thinking  mu^  precede  the  externalization, 
even  as  Jesus 's  discourse  on  righteousness  pre- 
ceded his  talk  on  prayer  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount. 

193 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Another  great  truth  that  is  brought  out  here 
is  the  part  that  gratitude  plays  in  making  prayer 
effective.  When  Jesus  ^ood  at  the  tomb  of  Laz- 
arus he  thanked  God  that  his  prayers  were  always 
heard.  This  was  an  expression  of  both  under- 
handing  and  gratitude.  Simple,  childlike,  heart- 
felt gratitude  for  the  priceless  knowledge  of  God's 
allness,  and  the  consequent  unreality  and  power- 
lessness  of  all  that  seems  to  oppose  Him — this  of 
itself  is  enough  to  bring  into  conscious  experience 
an  answer  to  any  prayer  for  the  right  supply  to 
meet  human  needs.  Paul  said,  ''And  be  ye  thank- 
ful." Ingratitude  is  unbelief.  If  we  believed  our 
heavenly  Father  to  be  all-powerful,  and  willing 
to  meet  our  every  real  need,  could  we  ever  be 
ungrateful,  and  could  we  ever  plead  with  Him  to 
grant  our  selfish  desires? 

James  said,  "The  effe6tual  fervent  prayer  of 
a  righteous  man  availeth  much."  Such  is  the 
prayer  of  the  right-thinking  man.  It  is  the 
affirmation  of  God's  allness,  the  affirmation  of 
Him  as  infinite  Good,  and  is  inspired  by  love  and 
gratitude  and  absolute  unselfishness.  It  is  know- 
ing the  Truth  that  Jesus  said  would  result  in 
man's  freedom.  He  said  as  much  when  he  made 
that  remarkable  statement  about  prayer,  "There- 
fore I  say  unto  you,  "What  things  soever  ye  desire 
whon  ye  pray  believe  that  ye  receive  them,  and  ye 
shall  have  them."  In  other  words,  tvhen  you 
pray,  knoiv  that  there  is  no  power  opposed  to 
infinite  Good;  knoiv  that  the  material  ohBru6tion 
ivhich  seems  to  §land  in  the  way  is  in  reality  only 

194 


JEAN   EVARTS 

a  thing  of  false  thought,  and  therefore  without 
power  to  injure  or  hold  you.  Such  knowledge  of 
God  as  the  only  reality  will  remove  mountains  of 
error. 

Paul  admonished  men  to  pray  without  ceasing. 
This  means  incessant  affirmation  of  God's  infini- 
tude, a  seeing  of  God  only,  a  knowledge  of  Man's 
spiritual  nature,  and  a  bringing  out  of  the  fruits 
of  such  knowledge  within  the  human  conscious- 
ness. Right  thinking  is  prayer ;  and  regardless  of 
what  we  may  seem  to  be  doing  in  our  daily  rou- 
tine, the  undercurrent  of  right  thinking  can  go  on 
uninterruptedly  in  our  minds.  We  have  the  ability 
to  distinguish  between  the  real  and  the  unreal, 
for  we  have  the  Principle  that  we  can  apply  to 
make  the  necessary  te^ — ^'By  their  fruits  ye 
shall  know  them."  Right  application  of  that 
Principle,  based  upon  right  thinking,  is  prayer  in 
the  truest  sense  of  the  word. 

It  is  on  this  basis  that  healing  is  accomplished 
through  prayer.  All  the  mighty  works  of  Jesus 
were  done  through  his  perfect  apprehension  of 
true  prayer.  ' '  The  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the 
sick,"  said  the  apo^le.  Faith  is  understanding, 
not  mere  belief.  And  under^anding  is  based  upon 
real  knowledge,  or  Truth.  Such  faith,  under- 
fitanding,  is  "the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 
Truth,  entering  the  human  consciousness,  puts 
out  false  thought  and  belief,  and  these  then  cease 
to  be  externalized  in  the  consciousness.  The  re- 
sult is  a  cure,  for  disease  is  the  manife^ation  of 
discordant  thought,  whether  that  thought  be  seen, 

195 


THE  DIARY  OF 

held  before  ''the  mind's  eye,"  on  the  plane  of 
''conscious  awareness,"  or  whether  it  be  lurking, 
unseen  and  unknown,  in  the  darker  recesses  of 
the  human  mentality.  This  is  the  divine  method 
of  healing,  the  method  of  Jesus,  the  "prayer  of 
the  righteous." 

True  prayer  declares  the  ever-presence  of  God. 
It  is  the  "word"  of  God  declared  to  the  human 
consciousness,  the  "two-edged  sword"  that  is 
sent  out  into  the  human  mind  to  hew  down  ' '  every 
plant  that  my  Father  hath  not  planted."  And,  as 
the  Word  of  God,  it  has  God  himself  back  of  it. 
Therefore,  it  mu^  be  tru^ed,  even  as  God  himself 
is  tru^ed.  It  mu^  receive  our  absolute  confidence, 
for  we  have  the  authority  of  Jesus  for  knowing 
that  the  material  ob^ru6lions  which  we  pray  to 
have  removed  from  our  experience  in  reality  do 
not  exi^.  We  therefore  mu^l  expe6l  all  good  from 
such  prayer;  and  we  are  juSlified  in  having  as 
much  confidence  in  it  as  in  the  presence  of  God, 
for  it  is  the  presence  of  God  declared.  Nothing 
can  hinder  it  or  ^ay  its  a6tion,  for  Omnipotence 
is  back  of  it,  and  infinite  Energy  is  urging  it  on  to 
do  the  work  expected  of  it.  Jesus  said,  "And 
when  thou  ha^  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father 
which  is  in  secret :  and  thy  Father  which  seeth  in 
seciet  shall  reward  thee  openly."  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
taught  us  that  this  means  shutting  the  door  of  the 
human  mentality  again^  all  material  sense  of 
lack,  or  separation  from  God,  infinite  Good.  It  is 
knowing  that  there  is  no  real  material  condition 
to  be  met  and  overcome ;  that  there  is  no  real, 

196 


JEAN   EVARTS 

mysterious  power  to  cope  with  and  overthrow.  It 
is  knowing  that  seeming  material  things  and  con- 
ditions have  only  the  power  that  the  human  mind 
is  according  to  them  in  its  thought.  It  is  knowing 
that  we  can  do  all  things  if  we  do  not  limit  God, 
and  it  is  knowing  that  it  is  not  ourselves,  but  the 
Chri^  Principle  within  us,  that  does  all  things. 
The  open  reward  of  such  righteousness  comes  in 
the  externalization  of  good  in  our  conscious  ex- 
perience. The  one  who  prays  in  this  way  will  see 
his  prayer  demon^rated  or  manifested  in  con- 
scious experience  ju§t  to  the  extent  that  he  is 
meeting  God's  demand  for  right  thinking,  and, 
consequently,  right  living.  In  other  words,  he 
will  receive  from  such  prayer  ju^  what  he  makes 
room  for.  His  mental  chamber  mu^  be  emptied, 
at  leaSt;  to  some  extent,  before  right  ideas  and 
concepts  can  find  room  there. 

Prayer  can  never  change  God.  But  it  does 
change  the  mortal  man.  It  does  change  and  de- 
^roy  the  false  sense  of  man.  A  mortal's  faith 
does  not  Simulate  the  Almighty,  but  it  does  break 
down  within  the  mortal  consciousness  that  which 
causes  doubt  of  God's  omnipotence.  Hone^  prayer 
always  changes  the  one  who  prays.  The  prayer 
of  the  righteous  man  brings  the  power  of  God, 
expressed  in  Truth,  to  bear  upon  his  problems, 
and  the  difficulties  are  overcome  and  dissipated  in 
proportion  as  he  is  conforming  to  God's  spiritual 
laws.  Such  prayer  opens  his  mentality  to  receive 
what  God  has  already  sent  him,  ju^  as  opening 
the  shutters  of  a  dark  room  allow^s  the  sunlight  to 

197 


THE  DIARY  OF 

flow  in.  Opening  th«  shutters  has  no  effe6t  what- 
ever upon  the  sunlight,  but  it  does  have  a  marked 
effect  upon  the  room. 

Ihe  mortal  man  exi^s  as  a  witness  to  the 
seeming  power  of  error.  So  we  who  have  gained 
some  knowledge  of  the  infinitude  of  God  are  called 
upon  to  witness  to  this  same  unreal  power.  But 
we  know  that  declaring  the  Word  of  God,  bidding 
error  get  behind  us,  and  persi^ently  resisting  it 
with  Truth,  as  Jesus  did,  and  not  wre^ling  with 
it  as  a  reality,  it  will  eventually  flee  from  us.  Not 
that  error  has  any  power  or  intelligence  that 
enables  it  to  call  upon  mortals  to  witness  to  its 
reality,  for  it  has  no  power,  either  as  persons, 
environment,  or  things;  it  is  but  a  false  mental 
concept.  But  Truth  in  its  a6tivity  slirs  up  what- 
ever may  seem  to  be  opposed  to  it,  or  to  deny  its 
omnipotence,  and  in  this  way  man  is  continually 
confronted  with  problems  of  every  sort.  But  w^e 
know  that  the  appearing  of  these  problems  is  like- 
wise the  appearing  of  splendid  opportunities  to 
demonstrate  God's  allness  and  Man's  dominion. 
We  know  that  every  problem  in  itself  implies  the 
existence  of  that  which  will  solve  it,  for  back  of 
every  appearance  there  stands  the  reality,  and  for 
every  error  there  is  the  Truth  that  will  de.^roy 
it.  By  knowing  the  Truth,  and  persi.'^tently  hold- 
ing to  it,  despite  the  so-called  testimony  of  the 
five  physical  senses,  despite  human  opinions  and 
material  beliefs,  we  know  that  liuman  thinking 
will  finally  yield  to  the  divine;  and    when    that 

198 


JEAN   EVARTS 

occurs  the  problem  is    solved    and    the    correct 
answer  becomes  externalized  in  consciousness. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  method  given  us  for  work- 
ing out  our  salvation.  Again,  it  is  but  the  '' prayer 
of  the  righteous."  It  is  knowing  the  reality  and 
omnipotence  of  Truth,  and  the  unreality  and  im- 
potence of  error.  To  pray  to  God  to  save  us  from 
evil  is  to  admit  the  a6luality  of  evil,  and  to  assume 
that  God  knows  it  to  be  real.  For  God  to  know 
evil  would  be  for  evil  to  be  eternal.  Therefore,  to 
draggle  again^  it  would  be  utterly  vain.  This 
great  Truth  is  well  illu^rated  by  the  continued 
presence  of  evil  in  the  world.  The  human  race 
has  for  untold  centuries  searched  for  the  origin 
of  e\  il.  Fortunately  for  itself,  it  has  never  found 
it,  for  had  it  done  so,  it  would  have  proved  evil 
real,  and  hence  immortal.  Yet  in  the  absence  of 
such  proof,  men  have  believed  it  to  be  as  real  as 
Good,  and  have  fftriven  for  ages  to  overcome  it  on 
that  basis.  They  have  found  their  efforts  futile. 
The  origin  of  that  which  does  not  exi^  cannot  be 
found.  No  real  thing  can  be  overcome  on  any 
basis  whatsoever.  The  ^atement  that  2+2=4  is 
a  very  real  thing,  and  there  is  no  power  in  heaven 
or  earth  that  can  overcome  it.  The  ^atement  that 
2+2=7  would  seemingly  have  the  same  power  if 
all  men  believed  it.  And  believing  it,  men  could 
never  overcome  it.  They  mu§t  fir^  learn  the 
Truth  regarding  it.  For  men  to  know  evil  is  for 
them  to  become  its  servants,  as  Jesus  said.  To 
assume  to  know  evil  is  to  perpetuate  its  seeming 
exigence,  and  to  continue  to  see  it  manifested 

199 


THE  DIARY  OF 

in  all  sorts  of  ways  in  conscious  experience.  To 
know  that  evil  is  the  suppositional  opposite 
of  Good;  to  use  common,  every-day  logic  when 
we  say  that  God  is  infinitely  good,  and  not  to 
add  in  the  next  breath  that  He  made  evil  or 
permits  its  existence ;  to  know,  as  we  really  mu^ 
know,  that  if  God  is  infinite  Good,  and  yet  per- 
mits the  existence  of  evil,  He  mu^  himself 
be  evil  to  the  extent  of  permitting  it  to  exi^,  is  to 
begin  to  see  the  "problem  of  evil"  in  its  true 
light  and  to  take  the  fir§t  ^eps  toward  solving 
it.  The  false  thought  of  sin  results  in  sinful  mani- 
fe^ations ;  the  false  thought  of  disease  results  in 
manifestations  of  disease;  the  false  thought  of  a 
real  opposite  to  infinite  Life  results  in  the  mani- 
fe^ation  called  death ;  and  all  this  will  go  on  and 
on,  until  mortals  grasp  the  Truth  of  Being  and 
cleai  their  mentalities  of  the  "thieves  and  money 
changers"  that  have  made  such  disorder  there. 

Our  prayer,  to  be  true  and  effective,  mu^ 
always  begin  with  God.  The  Allness  of  infinite 
Good  is  the  major  premise  to  all  right  reasoning 
when  answering  the  false  arguments  of  error. 
Instead  of  accepting  theological  ^atements  and 
human  opinions  regarding  heaven  and  hell,  sin 
and  salvation,  we  take  as  our  w^orking  premise 
the  Truth  of  God's  infinitude.  Mrs.  Eddy  pointed 
out  the  w^ay  by  first  accepting  this,  and  then  de- 
ducing a  religion  that  contains  all  the  elements 
that  Jesus  said  con^ituted  true  religion — the 
meeting  of  human  needs,  the  healing  of  the  sick, 
the  binding  up  of  broken  hearts,  and  setting  man- 

200 


JEAN    EVARTS 

kind  free  to  work  out  their  complete  salvation, 
even  to  the  ultimate  revealing  of  Man  as  God's 
image  and  likeness,  without  a  single  element  of 
materiality.  She  has  rei^tored  the  loSl  element  of 
healing  to  Christianity,  and  has  pointed  men  away 
from  useless  disputations  concerning  the  mere 
letter  of  the  Word,  to  a  demonstration  of  its  living 
Principle.  She  has  correctly  interpreted  the 
greatest  of  the  Commandments,  ''Thou  shalt  have 
no  ether  Gods  before  me,"  and  has  shown  the  dire 
results  that  follow  the  breaking  of  this  imperative 
command.  She  has  shown  how  all  the  forces  of 
the  Universe  join  with  the  man  who  is  conscien- 
tiously seeking  to  do  God's  wdll.  She  has  shown 
that  the  mortal  man's  failure  to  rid  himself  of  the 
ills  of  this  life  is  due  to  having  mentally  limited 
himself,  because  he  has  fir^  mentally  limited  God. 
She  has  showm  that,  regardless  of  the  so-called 
te^imony  of  the  physical  senses,  we  are  right  here 
and  now  the  children  of  God,  even  as  the  Apo^le 
insisted  we  were,  and  she  has  shown  us  how  this 
spiritual  fa(5t  can  be  brought  into  manife^ation. 
But  she  has  likewise  insisted  that  working  out 
one's  salvation  is  no  child's  play,  but  demands 
constant  work,  ceaseless  vigilance,  and  incessant 
praver  of  the  right  kind.  "Earth's  preparatory 
school  must  be  improved  to  the  utmost,"  she  has 
said,  (Science  and  Health,  page  486)  and  we  are 
realizing  the  truth  of  this  statement.  And  yet  she 
adds,  "The  warfare  with  one's  self  is  grand." 
(Miscellaneous  Writings,  Obedience).  For  the 
warfare  is  always  with  one's  self,  even  \\ath  the 

201 


THE  DIARY  OF 

sense  of  a  personal  self  of  mixed  good  and  evil, 
the  mortal  self  that  counterfeits  the  real  Man. 
And  the  arena  in  which  the  confli6t  takes  place  is 
always  the  human  consciousness. 

Jesus  said,  "If  any  man  will  come  after  me, 
let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and 
follow  me."  However  the  expression  "deny  him- 
self" may  be  interpreted,  there  is  no  question  that 
the  mortal  man  muit  deny  himself  in  the  ^ricle.^ 
sense  of  that  word,  if  he  would  "put  off  the  old 
man. ' '  He  mu^  deny  the  seeming  reality  of  him- 
self as  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood,  a  material  body 
in  which  a  mind  dwells.  He  must  deny  the  reality 
of  material  man  as  the  image  and  likeness  of  God, 
infinite  Mind.  He  mu^  deny  reality  to  evil,  and 
to  all  modes  of  mortal  thinking.  Mortals  have 
always  believed  in  the  exigence  of  a  universe, 
including  man,  which  is  material,  temporal,  and 
imperfe6t,  and  that  cataistrophe,  poverty,  sin,  sick- 
ness, and  death  are  very  real  things.  The  whole 
body  of  mortal  thought,  which  Mrs.  Eddy  calls 
"mortal  mind,"  and  which  holds  this  belief  in  its 
various  phases,  is  itself  the  supposed  mind  or 
intelligence  opposed  to  God,  that  Jesus  referred 
to  as  the  "devil,"  or  one  evil.  This  "devil"  is 
simply  a  mass  of  fakity.  It  is  a  liar,  who  abides 
not  in  the  Truth,  "because  there  is  no  truth  in 
him."  Mortal  mind  is  the  lie  about  everything 
that  God  is  and  has  made.  Therefore,  it  is  "the 
prince  of  liars."  Paul  says  our  sicknesses  and 
other  troubles  do  not  spring  from  flesh  and  blood, 
nor  from  our  bodies,  but  come  from  "principali- 

202 


JEAN   EVARTS 

ties  and  powers,"  from  'Hlie  rulers  of  the  dark- 
ness of  this  world, ' '  from  *  *  spiritual  wickedness  in 
high  places."  From  these  proceed  th«  "fiery  darts 
of  the  wicked, ' '  and  the  * '  wiles  of  the  devil, ' '  evil 
thoughts,  which  become  manife^ed  in  our  con- 
cepts of  body  as  disease,  in  our  business  affairs 
as  perplexity  and  disa^er,  and  in  our  environ- 
ment as  discord,  poverty,  and  untoward  condi- 
tions. All  this  slulf  which  Paul  referred  to  is 
simply  false  belief  in  mortal  mind,  or  conscious- 
ness, and  the  world  knows  it  as  materialism, 
hypnotism,  spiritualism,  occultism,  hatred,  malice, 
en\y,  jealousy,  revenge,  doubt,  discouragement, 
fear,  and  all  evil. 

Jesus 's  method  of  casting  out  these  things  was 
fir^  to  deny  them  any  real  exigence.  When  the 
asserted  authority  of  this  so-called  mind  is  denied, 
it  often  seems  to  turn  and  try  to  rend  the  one  who 
is  being  deceived  by  it.  Once  when  Jesus  ca^  out 
the  demon,  or  devil,  of  dumbness,  it  seemed  to 
turn  and  rend  the  vi6tim.  But  the  seeming  fury 
of  evil  is  due  only  to  its  being  birred  up  by  Truth, 
as  preliminary  to  its  removal  from  consciousness. 

There  is  no  more  important  task  in  the  w^orld, 
no  greater  work,  no  more  profitable  business,  than 
to  acquire  the  true  under^anding  of  God's  allness, 
and  evil's  unreality.  "Give  me  under^anding, 
and  I  shall  live,"  cried  the  wise  man.  The  one 
who  has  true  under^anding  has  also  a  knowledge 
of  the  nature  and  seeming  methods  of  evil.  This 
knowledge,  Truth,  is  the  complete  armor  of  God. 
As  Paul  expressed  it,  it  consi^s  of  the  breastplate 

203 


THE  DIARY  OF 

of  righteousness  (right  thinking)  the  girdle  of 
Truth,  the  sandals  of  peace,  the  helmet  of  salva- 
tion, the  shield  of  faith  (understanding)  and  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  Word  of  God. 
With  this  armor  on,  no  man  need  fear  evil  in 
any  form. 

The  true  under^anding  of  the  supposititious 
nature  of  mortal  man  answers  the  que^ion  of  the 
ages:  "Whence  do  I  come,  and  whither  am  I 
going?"  Mortal  man  is  shown  to  be  the  produ(5t 
of  mortal  thought.  The  perpetuation  of  mortals 
results  from  the  union  of  two  mortal  minds.  It 
is  another  modus  of  false  belief.  The  supposed 
union  of  two  mortal  minds  gives  rise  to  a  third, 
partaking  of  their  nature  and  "inheriting"  many 
of  their  chara6teri^ics.  This  is  the  Parting  point 
of  a  manife^ation  of  another  mortal  mind.  As 
this  resulting  mortal  mind  has  a  definite  begin- 
ning, so  will  it  also  have  an  ending,  for  whatever 
begins  mu^  likew^ise  end — it  cannot  be  perpetu- 
ated. This  so-called  new  mind,  supposedly  result- 
ing from  the  union  of  two  minds,  had  no  previous 
exigence.  It  is  the  result  of  the  union  of  the  two 
parent  minds  that  formed  it.  Its  so-called  inher- 
ited chara(5teri^ics,  the  supposed  exigence  of 
which  has  given  rise  to  the  suppositional  "law  of 
heredity,"  are  but  the  result  of  pre-natal  mes- 
merism, and  come  from  the  supposititious  parent 
minds  themselves.  This  new  mind,  or  man,  de- 
velops as  a  consciousness,  or  thought-activity,  and 
brings  out  in  his  conscious  experience  the  fruit  of 
his  thinking.     What  he  holds  in  thought  becomes 

204 


JEAN    EVARTS 

externalized  in  bis  consciousness,  within  himself, 
and  this  he  refle6ts  to  those  within  the  radius  of 
Ms  thought.  The  nature  of  his  thought  is  de- 
pendent upon  education,  association,  pre-natal 
mesmerism,  and  the  influx  of  the  thought  that  sur- 
rounds him.  Fear,  disease,  and  limitation  thoughts 
are  early  taught  him,  and  he  grows  to  look  upon 
these  as  realities.  Having  been  put  into  his  men- 
tality, they  produce  manife^ations  after  their 
own  kind  in  his  conscious  experience.  This  ex- 
perience is  varied,  and  is  determined  absolutely 
by  the  kind  of  beliefs  he  holds.  Finally,  the  be- 
liefs of  old  age,  senility,  and  decay  become  exter- 
nalized, and  the  belief  of  death,  the  opposite  of 
Life,  at  last  manife^s  itself  as  a  cessation  of  men- 
tal a6tivity,  and  the  man  is  said  to  die.  If  he  has 
died  in  the  orthodox  faith,  his  fellow  mortals  be- 
lieve that  he  will  be  awakened  beyond  the  portal 
of  death,  and  that  he  will  be  made  immortal,  and 
will  be  transferred  to  a  place  of  eternal  bliss.  To 
^ir  his  consciousness  into  renewed  a6livity  this 
side  of  the  imaginary  gateway  of  death  is  believed 
impossible,  unthinkable,  despite  the  fa6l  that 
many  of  those  who  hold  this  belief  admit  that 
Jesus  was  able  to  do  this  very  thing,  and  that  he 
did  do  it,  and  told  his  followers  that  they  would 
be  able  to  do  likewise,  provided  they  kept  his 
commandments. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  life-hi^ory  of  mortal 
man.  Many  days  ago  we  asked  what  possible  sal- 
vation there  could  be  for  this  sort  of  man.  Chris- 
tian Science  has  answ^ered  this  que^ion,  likewise, 

205 


THE  DIARY  OF 

and  has  brought  to  mortals  in  the  religion  of 
Jesns  a  knowledge  of  the  only  salvation  possible 
to  them.  Prayers  of  limitation,  pleading  and 
begging,  have  long  since  been  proved  ineffectual. 
As  Mrs.  Eddy  has  said,  such  prayer  is  asking  God 
to  be  God,  and  is  "vain  repetition."  Drugging 
and  hygiene  have  been  found  to  give  relief  only  in 
proportion  to  the  mortal's  faith  in  them.  Faith 
in  drugs  is  aptly  termed  "bottled  faith."  The 
drugging  sy^em  is  an  attempt  to  eradicate  error 
with  error,  and  depends  for  its  exigence  upon  the 
belief  of  life  and  intelligence  in  matter.  Its  effects 
vary  with  the  varying  of  faith  in  it;  and  this 
faith  is  confidence,  or  mere  belief — never  under- 
handing.  Matter,  a  thing  of  false  thought,  can 
have  no  life,  nor  can  it  be  the  expression  of  real 
Lif3,  which  knows  no  death.  Even  materiali^s 
now  concede  the  ultimate  basis  of  matter  to  be 
"superimposed  layers  of  positive  and  negative 
electricity, "  thus  making  the  fundamental  con- 
^ituents  of  matter  wholly  immaterial,  and  there- 
fore mental. 

Chri^ian  Science  says  to  the  mortal  conscious- 
ness that  is  ^ruggling  with  its  false  beliefs,  "I 
will  put  my  Spirit  in  you,  saith  the  Lord,  and  ye 
shall  live."  It  is  the  putting  of  the  Spirit  of 
Truth  into  the  human  consciousness  that  enables 
it  to  live,  to  ca§l  off  its  unreal  self,  and  to  uncover 
the  real  Man,  the  image  and  likeness  of  God.  It 
is  giving  men  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  and 
then  teaching  them  to  acknowledge  Him  in  all 
their  ways,  that  is,  to  a6t-their-knowledge  of  Him 

206 


JEAN    EVARTS 

in  every  walk  of  life.  It  is  showing  them  why  it 
is  that  "to  be  spiritually  minded  is  life."  It  is 
proving  the  wonderful  Truth  of  the  ^atement, 
*'The  Lord  thy  God  in  the  mid^  of  thee  is 
mighty,"  by  showing  what  corre6l  thinking  about 
God  and  Man  will  do  for  the  human  consciousness. 
It  is  daily  proving  that  'Hhere  is  nothing  from 
without  a  man  that  can  defile  him,"  by  showing 
that  all  the  discord  and  unhappiness  which  mei;! 
seem  to  experience  is  the  logical  result  of  their 
own  false  thinking.  Finally,  it  is  showing  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within,  when  the  con- 
sciousness has  been  cleared  of  its  false  thought- 
concepts,  and  God's  thoughts  have  been  permitted 
to  eriter  and  become  active  there. 

No,  sin  and  death  have  not  been  eliminated 
from  conscious  experience  by  the  religion  of  Jesus 
as  yet,  for  men  are  ju^  coming  into  a  knowledge 
of  the  great  Truth  of  God's  allness,  and  the 
human  mind  can  grasp  it  only  by  degrees,  "line 
upon  line,  precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little  and 
there  a  little."  The  true  knowledge  is  at  confli6t 
witli  the  false  sense  of  things,  and  men  are  so 
occupied  with  worldly  affairs,  with  their  false 
pleasures,  and  with  that  sort  of  labor  which  is  not 
for  meat,  that  they  are  only  slowly  giving  atten- 
tion to  this  Truth  which  is  defined  to  set  them 
free.  And  even  after  the  Light  has  begun  to  shine 
in  the  human  consciousness,  the  false  sense  af 
things  seems  diflBcult  to  get  rid  of,  because  it  is 
what  has  been  believed  and  held  to  for  so  many 
centuries,  and  so  many  millions  of  men  ^ill  believe 

207 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

it,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  for  a  long  time  to 
come.  Even  though  the  Truth  has  begun  to  work 
in  mortal  consciousness,  the  mortal  mentality  is 
^ill  darkened  by  the  mass  of  mortal  thought  that 
is  seemingly  everywhere,  and  men  Slill  find  them- 
selves beset  with  evil  suggestions  and  thoughts, 
even  after  they  know  the  Truth  in  part. 

But  the  leaven  is  at  work.  Thousands  upon 
thousands  of  mortals  have  seen  the  curative  and 
uplifting  effe6ls  of  Chri^ian  Science;  and, 
cheered  by  some  faint  glimpses  of  the  glorious  end 
to  be  attained,  and  knowing  that  * '  in  due  time  ye 
shall  reap,  if  ye  faint  not,"  they  are  persi^ently 
holding  to  the  Truth  and  bringing  out  in  conscious 
experience  the  fruits  of  their  knowledge.  In  the 
order  of  elimination  of  false  thinking  from  the 
human  mind,  sin  and  sickness  go  firSl.  Then  will 
follow  death,  and,  finally,  matter  itself.  In  the 
process  of  redemption  the  human  mind  changes 
its  beliefs,  and  beliefs  of  sin  and  sickness  gradu- 
ally give  way  to  better  beliefs  of  health  and  good- 
ness. Because  of  its  counterfeit  nature,  the  mor- 
tal mind  is  essentially  imitative,  and  repeats 
whatever  is  persi^ently  held  before  it  as  a  model. 
Holding  the  Truth  con^antly  before  it,  we  can 
lead  it  to  gradually  relinquish  its  hold  on  that 
which  is  false.  Belief  giving  way  to  underslanding 
at  last,  that  day  ' '  which  no  man  knoweth  but  the 
Father"  will  appear,  and  ''we  shall  all  be  changed 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,"  "the  heavens  shall  be 
rolled  up  as  a  scroll,"  the  belief  of  matter  as  sub- 
>'?feance  will  go  out,  and  God    and    His    spiritual 

208 


JEAN   EVARTS 

Creation,  including  Man  in  His  image  and  like- 
ness, will  ^nd  revealed  in  a  glory  and  beauty 
that  "eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man." 

If  we  are  hone^ly  trying  to  walk  in  the  way 
Jesus  pointed  out,  we  will  obey  him  and  take  no 
anxious  thought  for  the  morrow.  We  will  live  for 
today,  and  know  that  we  are  living  in  the  eternal 
present.  We  will  know  time  for  what  it  is,  a 
human  concept  only,  and  unknown  to  God.  Know- 
ing that  evil  in  reality  has  no  power,  and  knowing 
that  God  has  all  power  over  the  false  belief  of 
evil,  we  will  lay  aside  fear  and  anxious  dread,  to- 
gether with  all  apprehension  of  loss,  poverty,  sick- 
ness, and  death.  With  every  problem,  we  will  do 
our  work,  and  leave  the  result  to  God.  To  be 
anxious  for  the  morrow  is  to  discredit  Him.  To 
lack  faith  in  Him  is  to  limit  Him  in  thought,  and 
to  limit  our  thought  of  what  He  has  already  done 
for  us.  The  invariable  law  of  externalization  will 
then  cause  this  limiting  thought  to  become  exter- 
nalized in  our  conscious  experience,  and  w^e  will 
suffer  from  the  very  things  that  we  are  anxious 
about.  Jesus  indicated  a  great  spiritual  law  when 
he  bade  men  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow.  He 
also  showed  himself  to  be  possessed  of  the  great- 
est common  sense.  W^e  know  from  daily  experience 
that  worry  and  apprehension  never  solve  our 
problems,  but,  on  the  contrary,  increase  their  dif- 
ficulty and  do  incalculable  harm.  Borrowing  from 
the  future  is  mere  speculation.  We  never  fear  a 
reality.    This  is  an  utter  impossibility.  We  never 

209 


THE  DIAKY  OF 

fear  real  things,  but  only  our  thoughts  of  things. 
We  never  fear  a  disa^er,  but  only  our  apprehen- 
sion of  a  disa^er.  It  is  never  reality  that  makes 
us  afraid,  but  only  fear  itself.  In  other  words, 
we  simply  fear  fear.  Fear  is  never  based  upon 
real  knowledge,  and  therefore  is  never  based 
upon  God.  It  is  sin,  and  it  will  manifest  itself  as 
sin  always  does,  in  some  form  of  limitation  or 
discord,  if  we  hold  it  in  thought.  Jesus  knew 
this,  and  he  always  began  his  work  with  the  ad- 
monition, ''Be  not  afraid."  If  God  is  Love,  and 
if  He  is  available  to  mankind,  there  is  nothing  to 
fear.  To  fear  fear-thoughts  is  not  even  common 
sense. 

The  great  difficulty  is  that,  while  men  profess 
to  believe  in  the  infinitude  of  God,  in  reality  they 
do  not  expe6t  Him  to  help  them  out  of  their 
troubles.  They  rely  either  upon  themselves,  or 
upon  mortal  aid.  That  failing,  they  feel  them- 
selves lost  indeed.  If  they  turn  to  God  at  all,  it 
is  usually  as  a  la^  resort,  or  else  they  turn  to  Him 
with  their  minds  filled  with  thoughts  of  limitation, 
of  the  reality  of  sickness  and  discord,  and  of  the 
certain  reality  of  their  particular  trouble  from 
which  they  ask  to  be  lifted.  They  beg  God  to 
liberate  them;  they  plead  with  Hira  and  protect 
the  awful  injui^tice  of  material  laws  which  have 
resulted  in  their  sufferings;  but  they  fail  to 
under.^tand  that  their  very  attitude  is  one  of 
''limiting  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,"  who  has  al- 
ready made  them  free  and  met  their  every  need. 

210 


JEAN   EVARTS 

Jesus  has  told  UrS  that  unless  we  become  as 
little  children  we  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  No  more  common  sense 
^atement  of  Truth  was  ever  made.  The  attitude 
of  the  child  who  goes  to  his  parent  for  that  which 
will  meet  his  needs  is  one  of  faith  that  amounts 
to  understanding.  He  knows  that  his  parent  loves 
him,  and  that  he  is  able  to  meet  the  need.  More- 
over, he  knows  that  his  parent  will  meet  it,  if  he 
has  not  already  done  so.  The  child  is  not  anxious 
for  the  morrow,  nor  does  he  plan  and  scheme  far 
ways  of  meeting  the  problems  that  shall  arise  in 
the  future.  In  his  way  he  knows  that  there  will 
be  problems,  but  he  likewise  knows  that  they  will 
be  solved  for  him,  and  that  he  has  only  to  ^and 
and  see  the  solution  made.  He  does  not  burden 
himself  with  responsibilities,  nor  limit  himself  by 
outlining  and  planning  events  and  means,  from 
which  he  will  find  that  he  mu^  druggie  to  free 
himself  later.  He  does  not  regard  himself  as  im- 
portant, in  the  sense  of  being  necessary  to  the 
accomplisliment  of  any  purpose  or  work,  and  so 
does  not  entangle  himself  in  the  chains  of  person- 
ality, or  personal  sense.  He  knows  that  right 
now  he  is  the  son  of  one  who  is  able  and  willing 
to  give  him  all  that  he  needs,  and  he  re^s  happy 
in  this  beautiful  understanding.  Everything  that 
is  pure  and  lovely  pleases  him.  Wealth,  as  the 
world  regards  it,  is  unknown  to  his  thought.  A 
flower,  a  book,  the  sunlight,  freedom — such  things 
constitute  his  wealth.  He  knows  nothing  of  the 
lu§t  of  gold,  nor  the  greed  and  avarice  of  material 

211 


THE  DIARY  OF 

accumulation.  He  knows  nothing  of  selfish  ambi- 
tion for  place  and  power.  He  sees  no  evil.  He 
knows  that  he  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of  love,  and 
that  his  only  task  is  to  refle6t  that  love  in  his 
daily  life. 

Men  of  the  world,  materiali^s  and  hard  busi- 
ness men,  would  openly  scoff  at  such  a  pi6lure. 
But  deep  in  their  hearts,  when  the  toil  and  ^rife 
of  the  day  is  over,  and  their  weary  bodies  re§l 
for  a  brief  hour  before  the  struggle  begins  anew, 
they  turn — yes,  every  one  of  them  turns — back  to 
those  dream-days  of  youth,  to  linger  over  such 
scenes  of  simple  happiness  as  they  have  never 
known  since  they  attained  to  that  dubious  ^ate 
called  manhood.  With  an  unutterable  longing 
they  turn  to  those  care-free  days;  and  with 
greater  hone^y  than  they  manifest  in  their  daily 
business  dealings  they  confess  that  they  would 
lay  their  earthly  all,  gold,  lands,  possessions  of 
every  sort,  on  the  altar  for  a  return  to  the  inno- 
cence and  bliss  of  childhood. 

When  Jesus  said  that  we  mu^  become  as  little 
children,  he  meant  that  we  mui^t  return  to  a  ^ate 
of  mental  innocence  and  purity.  Not  that  there 
mu^  be  any  return  to  ignorance  or  helplessness, 
nor  to  childish  and  immature  views,  but  that  as 
regards  our  under.^anding  of  God  as  our  infinite 
Father,  and  our  absolute  trust  and  confidence  in 
Him,  we  muSt  emulate  the  child 's  attitude  toward 
its  earthly  parent.  Freeing  the  mind  from 
thoughts  of  limitation  prevents  limitation  from 
becoming  a  part  of  our  conscious  experience.  And 

212 


JEAN   EVAETS 

so  it  is  with  every  thought  of  evil,  of  discord,  sick- 
ness, and  even  of  death  itself,  for  it  will  be  found 
that  death  is  but  the  thought  or  belief  of  death 
externalized  in  the  human  consciousness. 

Why  should  we  permit  thoughts  of  limitation 
to  enter  our  minds,  when  Jesus  showed  that  his 
tremendous  jjower  was  based  upon  freedom  from 
such  thoughts  f  Why  should  we  doubt  the  Father, 
when  Jesus  showed  us  so  plainly  what  the  Father 
is?  He  said,  "I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  and, 
"Having  seen  me  ye  have  seen  the  Father."  Why 
do  we  not  take  him  at  his  word  and  know  that, 
having  seen  Jesus,  we  have  indeed  seen  the 
Father?  Jesus  was  the  manif elation  of  love, 
tenderness,  goodness,  and  irresistible  power.  He 
proved  that  he  possessed  these  things  by  showing 
what  he  could  do  with  them.  Then  he  added  that 
the  Father  was  even  greater  than  he,  for  it  was 
the  Father  that  was  manifested  through  him. 
And  finally  he  said  that  if  we  would  follow  his 
sayings,  and  do  as  he  bade  us  do,  we  should  prove 
the  Truth  of  all  he  taught.  What  could  be  more 
direct  and  simple!  And  can  anything  more  be 
done  for  us  ?  If  a  teacher  gives  his  pupil  the  rule 
for  solving  a  problem,  is  not  the  pupil  provided 
\VT.th  all  that  he  needs  for  obtaining  the  corre<5t 
result?  God's  work  is  done;  and  if  we  will  Stop 
grumbling  and  complaining  about  unrealities,  and 
will  see  in  Jesus  a  reflection  of  the  Father  him- 
self, and  will  take  Jesus  at  his  word  and  begin  to 
follow  him,  we  can  do  our  own  work  and  bring  out 

213 


THE  DIARY  OF 

harmony  and  perfe^ion  in  our  conscious  experi- 
ence here  in  this  world. 

Yes,  it  does  mean  being  '  *  made  over. ' '  It  does 
mean  losing  mo^  of  our  present  cherished  con- 
cepts, mo^  of  our  present  opinions,  all  of  our 
mere  hypotheses,  our  speculations  and  guesses; 
it  does  mean  the  loss  of  material  pleasures,  as 
well  as  material  pains.  But  is  not  this  ju^  what 
the  world  is  really  driving  for?  Is  not  the  end 
to  be  attained  worth  the  sacrifice?  Paul  thought 
so,  when  he  said,  "^'For  I  reckon  that  the  suffer- 
ings of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be 
compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed 
in  us."  But  he  knew  that  that  glory  never  could 
be  revealed  in  a  mind  filled  with  thoughts  of  evil 
and  power  opposed  to  God.  And  so  he  set  about 
emptying  his  mind  of  such  thought,  putting  off 
the  old  man  and  putting  on  the  new. 

And  so  we  mu^  ^art  with  a  change  in  the 
manner  of  our  thinlftng.  God  mu^  be  all  to  us,  or 
nothing — there  is  no  half-way  position.  The  so- 
called  ironies  of  fate,  sickness,  loss,  disa^er,  and 
chance,  mu^  be  recognized  as  the  produ6ls  of 
false  thinking,  or  thinking  on  a  basis  of  ignor- 
ance. Either  all  is  Spirit,  or  else  all  is  matter. 
All  is  Gowl,  or  else  all  is  evil — the  two  cannot 
exi^  as  realities  side  by  side.  If  we  assume  that 
God,  Good,  and  evil  coexi.^,  but  that  Good  is 
greater  than  evil,  we  make  God  responsible  for 
the  existence  of  evil,  in  that  He  permits  it  to  exist, 
although  being  greater  than  evil,  Ho  could  destroy 
it.    Hence,  under  this  assumption,  God,  by  allow- 

214 


JEAN   EVARTS 

ing  evil  to  exi^,  ceases  to  be  Good,  and  we  no 
longer  have  two  powers,  Good  and  evil,  but  one 
only,  and  that  evil. 

If  we  assume  that  Good  and  evil  exi^  as  two 
equal  but  opposite  powers,  we  assume  an  utterly 
impossible  State  of  things,  ju^  as  impossible  as  to 
make  light  and  darkness  exiSt  together.  Under 
this  assumption  we  would  never  see  Good  over- 
coming evil,  nor  evil  overcoming  Good,  since  these 
two  powers  would  be  equal  and  opposite.  The 
human  mind  is  unable  to  comprehend  such  a  thing, 
ju^  as  unable  to  comprehend  it  as  to  indicate  the 
effect  of  an  irresistible  force  meeting  an  abso- 
lutely immovable  body. 

If  we  assume  that  Good  and  evil  coexist,  but 
that  evil  is  greater  than  Good,  we  make  evil  re- 
sponsible for  the  continued  existence  of  Good,  and 
to  that  extent  evil  ceases  to  be  evil  and  becomes 
Good.  Hence  the  result  is  not  two  powers,  one 
evil  and  the  other  Good,  but  one  only,  and  that 
Good. 

If  we  assume  that  evil  is  all,  and  that  Good 
does  not  exi^,  we  fail  to  account  for  known  fa6ts, 
unless  we  assume  that  what  appears  to  be  Good 
is  but  a  seeming  reality. 

The  conclusion  from  this  sort  of  reasoning  is 
that  there  cannot  be  two  powers.  Good  and  evil. 
One  of  them  mu^  be  an  assumption,  just  as  we 
are  forced  to  assume  that  either  light  is  real  and 
darkness  is  but  the  absence  of  light,  and  there- 
fore unreal,  or  vice  versa. 

215 


THE  DIARY  OF 

A  real  thing  is  a  reality  forever,  and  can  never 
cease  to  exist,  nor  can  it  ever  be  controverted  or 
overcome.  The  principles,  as  they  are  called,  of 
any  real  science,  such  as  mathematics,  can  never 
be  overthrown;  they  remain  the  same  throughout 
eternity.  We  may  not  underhand  them,  and  in 
our  ignorance  we  may  reach  wrong  conclusions. 
But  the  principles  remain  unaffected.  Errors  in 
mathematics  are  unreal,  for  they  have  no  basis  of 
principle  upon  wiiich  to  re^.  They  are  simply 
mis^atements  of  fa6l. 

If  a  single  evil  condition  can  be  overcome,  it 
shows  that  the  condition  could  not  have  been  real, 
but  mu^  have  been  a  supposition,  or  seeming 
reality.  If  a  single  condition  of  real  Good  is 
overcome  by  evil,  it  shows  that  the  Good  was  like- 
wise but  a  seeming.  But  if  we  assume  that  all  is 
evil,  and  then  attempt  to  work  out  our  salvation 
on  that  basis,  or  even  attempt  to  live  harmonious 
lives  on  that  as  a  working  hypothesis,  we  make  a 
sorry  business  of  it,  for  the  results  that  we  obtain 
are  sin,  sickness,  discord,  and  finally  death  and 
oblivion.  But  Jesus  assumed  that  all  was  Good, 
and  on  that  basis,  the  working  hypothesis  of  the 
allness  of  God,  he  overcame  every  form  of  evil. 
What  ToauSt  be  the  conclusion?  Simply  the  same 
conclusion  we  always  reach  in  solving  a  mathe- 
matical problem,  namely,  that  the  errors  of  exist- 
ence are  unreal,  and  the  Principle  and  correct 
solution  are  real  and  eternal.  This  is  the  con- 
clusion that  Mrs.  Eddy  reached  and  proved  to  be 
corre6t.    And  those  who  are  following  in  the  way 

216 


JEAN    EV^VETS 

she  has  led  are  now  proving  it.  The  results  they 
have  already  obtained  show  that  the  assumption 
that  God,  Good,  is  all,  and  that  evil  is  nothing 
real,  is  being  proved  correct,  and  to  the  extent 
that  it  is  so  proved  it  ceases  to  be  an  assumption 
and  becomes  a  fa6l. 

Either  all  is  Spirit,  or  all  is  matter.  But  we 
know  that  all  is  not  matter,  for  Truth,  Mind, 
Power,  Thought,  Love,  are  not  material.  And  as 
we  enumerate  these  things  which,  after  all,  are 
the  greatest  things  with  which  we  have  to  do, 
matter  dwindles  in  importance,  until  at  la^  we 
find  that  about  the  only  claim  left  for  it  is  that  of 
being  sub^ance.  But  matter  cannot  be  sub^ance, 
suh-Bare,  that  which  underlies  all  things,  for  in 
every  experience,  such,  for  example,  as  building 
a  house  or  writing  an  essay,  that  which  always 
precedes  the  material  manife^ation  is  a  mental 
a6tion.  So  about  all  we  can  say  for  matter  is  that 
it  seems  to  be  an  expression  of  mentality.  But, 
as  matter  expresses  discord  and  error,  it  mu^  be 
the  expression  of  an  erroneous  mentality — and  an 
erroneous  mentality  is  no  mentality  at  all,  but  a 
claim  of  mentality,  which  is  false,  unreal,  and 
therefore  without  power. 

Matter  owes  its  very  exigence  to  sense-te^i- 
mony ;  and  this  so-called  te^limony  we  have  found 
to  be  but  the  thoughts  exiting  already  within  the 
human  mentality.  Matter  never  supplies,  and 
never  did  supply,  a  single  human  need.  Men  are 
supposed  to  be  surrounded  by  matter  every^vhere, 
and  yet,  with  all  this  abundance  of  material  things 

217 


THE  DIARY  OF 

about  them,  they  ^ill  continue  to  sicken,  suffer, 
and  die.  The  atomic  ^ru6lure  is  never  sub^nce. 
The  sub^ance  of  a  silver  dollar  to  the  man  who  is 
cold  and  hungry  is  not  the  chemical  composition 
of  the  material  dollar,  but  its  purcha-sing  power, 
a  mental  thing.  Nor  is  the  food  or  coal  that  he 
may  purchase  with  this  dollar  real  substance,  for 
these  things  alone  have  no  power.  He  is  seeking 
a  mental  §tate,  a  ^ate  of  what  he  calls  comfort 
and  warmth  and  satisfa6lion,  but  none  the  less  a 
mental  ^ate,  a  ^ate  of  consciousness.  And  ma- 
terial ways  of  thinking  have  made  the  man  believe 
that  this  mental  ^ate  depends  upon  matter.  But 
the  real  sub^nce  that  he  seeks  is  never  for  a 
moment  material,  but  wholly  mental.  It  is  a  ^ate 
of  thought-activity,  or  consciousness. 

The  material  concept,  with  all  its  varied  phe- 
nomena, represents  only  what  appears  to  mortals 
to  exi^  in  the  absence  of  the  spiritual,  or  divine 
concept.  The  material  concept  is  a  cheat,  a  fraud, 
a  counterfeit,  depending  wholly  upon  human  cred- 
ulity for  its  existence  and  power.  The  real  Man 
is  immaterial  and  eternal,  not  subject  to  space 
limitation  or  time  changes.  Space  and  time  are 
neither  cause  nor  effe6t,  but  merely  limitation. 
Time  has  rightly  been  called  "the  greatest  cheat 
in  human  experience."  Almost  every  limitation 
circumscribing  the  efforts  of  mortals  can  be 
^ated  in  terms  of  time.  But  God's  children  are 
living  and  working  in  an  infinite  present,  a  present 
that  is  God-governed,  and  without  beginning  or 
ending,  always  with  us.     "Now  is  the  accepted 

218 


JEAN   EVARTS 

time,"  for  the  only  real  time  there  is  is  ''Now," 
the  present.  The  human  concept  of  time  has  no 
place  in  infinite  Mind,  nor  in  the  consciousness 
that  reflects  it.  Old  age,  senility,  decay,  death,  all 
follow  as  logical  conclusions  from  the  limiting 
premise  of  time  as  a  reality.  But  we  who  are 
gaining  the  true  under^anding  of  God's  infinitude 
are  beginning  to  undo  the  evils  that  come  from 
this  false  concept.  We  know  that  no  time  can  be 
lo^t,  and  that  so-called  age  counts  for  nothing. 
For,  if  we  ^art  right  and  persist,  we  know  that 
God  will  make  up  to  us  all  so-called  lo^  time,  even 
as  the  prophet  said,  "I  will  re^ore  to  you  the 
years  that  the  locuil  hath  eaten." 

Human  salvation  is  brought  about  by  a  change 
of  thought,  and  not  by  a  change  of  matter.  The 
material  sense  of  life,  this  sense  of  personality 
which  we  call  the  body,  is  the  seat  of  all  our  evil 
propensities.  All  evil  finds  its  origin  in  one  or 
more  of  the  five  so-called  physical  senses;  and 
these,  as  we  have  seen,  are  but  the  outer  accom- 
paniment of  mortal  thinking.  The  human  body 
is  a  human  or  mortal  mind  belief.  It  is  a  thing  of 
thought,  exiting  within  the  human  thought- 
a6tivity  which  we  call  consciousness.  There  is  no 
more  reason  for  believing  that  life  depends  upon 
the  body  than  there  is  for  believing  that  it  depends 
upon  any  of  the  other  thought-obje6ts  that  are 
posited  within  consciousness.  That  the  body  is 
formed  and  made  up  of  thought  is  shown  by  its 
changing  under  a  changed  thought  regarding  it. 
The  ^ate  of  consciousness  in  which  the  fleshly 

219 


THE  DIAEY  OF, 

body  has  its  exigence  as  a  material  obje6t  may  be 
''transformed  by  the  renewing  of  your  mind," 
and  is  being  so  transformed  daily  by  those  who 
have  gained  sufficient  understanding  of  these 
things  to  effect  such  a  change.  It  is  because  the 
human  body  is  a  thing  of  thought  that  Jesus  was 
able  to  control  it  at  will,  w^orking  those  deeds 
which  the  world  so  ignorantly  calls  miracles,  but 
which  we  are  now  learning  were,  as  a  contempor- 
ary writer  clearly  phrases  it,  ''expressions  of 
God's  law  made  conceivable  to  the  human  senses." 
It  is  just  because  matter  is  a  thing  of  thought,  a 
mental  concept,  that  Jesus  was  able  to  walk  on 
the  water  and  pass  through  closed  doors.  The 
so-called  law  that  the  human  body  shall  sink  in 
water,  or  shall  not  pass  through  another  material 
objecSt,  is  not  of  God's  making,  but  is  an  ena6lment 
of  mortal  belief,  a  supposititious  law  that  Jesus 
could  and  did  annul  by  knowing  the  Truth.  If 
God  had  created  this  fleshly  man,  we  could  not  put 
him  off.  But  having  projec^ted  him  out  of  our  own 
thinking,  and  exiting  as  he  does  only  in  con- 
sciousness, thought-a6tivity,  we  can  put  him  off  by 
attaining  a  spiritual  consciousness.  This  is  the 
way  pointed  out  by  Jesus.  This  is  being  born 
again.  Mortal  life  is  a  false  sense  of  life.  It  is 
the  fruit  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  Jesus 
said  that  to  be  spiritually  minded  is  life.  He 
knew  that  life  is  not  a  breathing  and  eating 
process,  but  a  process  of  knowing — in  other 
words,  he  knew  that  conscious  exigence  is  what 
men  call  life,  and  that  the  quality  of  consciousness 

220 


JEAN    EVARTS 

depends  upon  the  quality  of  thought  that  is  active 
in  forming  it.  To  know — to  undersstand — is  to 
live.  To  have  perfe6l  health,  abundance,  and  har- 
mony, we  mu.^  live  spiritually,  not  materially,  and 
we  mu^  give  up  our  cherished  beliefs  in  matter 
and  evil.  We  mu^  know  and  have  but  the  one 
God,  "to  know  whom  is  life  eternal." 

To  assume  that  knowledge  depends  upon  the 
vibrations  of  a  few  pieces  of  flesh  within  certain 
brain  centers,  is  utter  folly,  pitiable  ignorance. 
The  mortal  man  sees,  hears,  smells,  ta§les,  and 
feels  only  his  own  thoughts,  and  as  he  thinks  so 
is  he.  If  he  thinks  he  can  succeed  in  an  under- 
taking, he  builds  success  out  of  his  thoughts.  If 
he  limits  his  success  in  any  dire6lion,  he  brings 
out  the  fruit  of  such  limitation  in  conscious  exper- 
ience. The  laws  of  limitation  which  hedge  man- 
kind about  and  which  prevent  them  from  reaching 
their  ideals  are  of  human  origin,  and  have  only 
the  san6lion  of  human  belief.  It  is  the  things  that 
the  mortal  man  affirms  about  himself  and  his 
world  around  him  that  show  what  he  is  holding 
in  his  thought,  and  these  he  is  con^antly  bring- 
ing out  in  his  conscious  experience.  Jesus  once 
said,  "But  I  say  unto  you,  that  every  idle  word 
that  men  speak,  they  shall  give  account  thereof  in 
the  day  of  judgment.  For  by  thy  words  thou  shalt 
be  ju^ified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  con- 
demned." If  we  think  and  voice  failure,  disease, 
loss  and  lack,  these  will  become  manifested  in  our 
conscious  experience.  We  give  account  of  them 
in  the  ' '  day  of  judgment, ' '  the  day  and  hour  when 

221 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 

these  things,  according  to  the  law  of  externaliza- 
tion  of  thought,  manife^  themselves  as  claims  of 
evil,  having  the  reality  that  we  have  given  them. 

******* 

''You  will  find,"  he  added,  ''that  the  day  of 
judgment  is  every  day,  until  the  la^  claim  of 
power  apart  from  God  has  been  overcome  and  put 
out.  Truth  ^irs  up  all  that  seems  to  be  opposed 
to  it,  and  so  you  may  consider  that  every  experi- 
ence is  given  you  for  the  purpose  of  demon^rating 
God's  allness  and  Man's  dominion.  But  remem- 
ber that  you  are  Love's  idea,  and  as  such  you 
never  can  be  touched  by  error,  for  error  is  not  of 
God,  and  has  no  power." 


222 


MAY  24TH 


MAY  24TH 


V^^97 

1 

OU  have  asked  why  the  Christian 
churches  do  not  at  once  accept  the 
Truth  that  Mrs.  Eddy  has  given 
to  the  world,"  said  my  friend,  as 
I  was  preparing  for  today's  part 
of  his  message.  **In  reply  I  think 
we  may  again  cite  the  Law  of  Receptivity,  which 
we  have  discussed  to  some  extent  in  reference  to 
the  human  mind.  Truth  enters  that  mentality 
which  is  receptive  to  it.  Error  does  likewise.  The 
human  mind  becomes  receptive  to  Truth  only  as 
it  empties  itself  to  some  extent  of  prejudice  and 
erroneous  beliefs.  On  this  point  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
said,  '*Mu^  Chri^ian  Science  come  through  the 
Chri^ian  churches  as  some  persons  insi^?  This 
Science  has  come  already,  after  the  manner  of 
God's  appointing,  but  the  churches  seem  not 
ready  to  receive  it,  according  to  the  Scriptural 
saying,  'He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  re- 
ceived him  not.'  Jesus  once  said :  'I  thank  Thee, 
0  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  Thou 
ha^  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent, 
and  ha^  revealed  them  unto  babes :  even  so, 
Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy  sight.'  As 
aforetime,  the  spirit  of  the  Christ,  which  taketh 
away  the  ceremonies  and  do6trines  of  men,  is  not 
accepted  until  the  hearts  of  men  are  made  ready 
for  it."     (Science  and  Health,  page  131.) 


If  the  Church  had  held  to  the  spirit  of  the 
teachings  of  Jesus,  and  had  been  satisfied  to  re- 

225 


THE  DIABY  OF, 

main  as  unorthodox  as  he,  it  would  not  have  fallen 
into  its  present  ^ate  of  confusion.  If  Jesus,  by 
precept  and  example,  taught  the  non-exigence  of 
matter  as  real  subj§lanee,  what  warrant  has  the 
Christian  church  ever  had  for  preaching  its 
anthropomorphic  do6lrine  of  a  spiritual  Creator 
and  a  material  creation?  If  this  is  an  age  of  re- 
ligious skepticism  and  confusion,  it  is  because  the 
expanding  human  thought  is  becoming  weary  of 
the  diet  of  husks  that  has  been  fed  to  it  in  the 
name  of  Chri^ianity  for  a  thousand  years. 
Hungering  for  Truth,  yet  in  a  ^ate  of  unpre- 
paredness  for  its  reception,  the  himian  mind  has 
''sought  out  many  inventions,"  and  it  finds  itself 
today  gorged  with  its  own  hypotheses  and  inter- 
pretations. These  failing  to  ^and  the  te^  of 
genuineness,  it  has  plunged  into  an  excess  of  ma- 
terialism, to  such  an  extent  that  our  present  cen- 
tury witnesses  an  ahno^  unprecedented  develop- 
ment of  the  IxiSt  of  pleasure  and  worldly  gain. 
Mortals  are  driven  with  the  business  of  material 
aocQmulation ;  they  work  with  desperation  be- 
neath the  lash  of  their  own  self-imposed  laws. 
With  the  religious  demand  unsatisfied  by  the  con- 
fusion of  books  and  voices,  the  myriad  advices 
and  opinions,  warnings  and  spurs,  conflicting  and 
tormenting,  that  have  been  offered  to  it  in  the 
name  of  Chri^,  the  human  mind  is  turning 
again^  the  beliefs  of  its  fathers,  and  now  seems 
about  to  throw  aside  everything  that  does  not 
bear  the  ^amp  of  crass  materialism,  or  that  does 

226 


JEAN   EVARTS 

not  promise  to  satisfy,  in  part  at  leaSt,  its  craving 
for  material  pleasures  and  power. 

The  Chri^ian  church,  clinging  tenaciously  to 
ancient  sy^ems  of  dogma  and  ceremonialism,  is 
powerless  to  check  the  ^ir  within  the  human  mind. 
Human  thought  is  expanding  under  the  ^imulus 
of  a  divinely  inspired  desire  for  Truth;  but  the 
Christian  church,  holding  to  its  effete  traditions, 
jealous  of  its  sy^ems  of  faith,  and  shaken  with 
dread  le^  it  lose  its  monopoly  of  religious  truth, 
regards  this  desire  with  suspicion,  and  opposes 
itself  to  it — with  the  inevitable  result  that  it  mu^ 
either  throw  off  its  own  limitations,  or  be  swept 
aside. 

The  Bible  has  been  said  to  be  a  record  of  the 
development  of  the  concept  of  God  in  the  human 
mind.  It  records  both  the  progress  and  the  errors 
that  attended  this  unfoldment.  Early  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Jewish  religion  it  ceased  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  colledtion  of  records,  and  became  a 
unit,  whose  sole  author  was  declared  to  be  God. 
The  Helvetic  Confession  of  Faith  went  to  the 
extreme  of  announcing  that  the  words,  letters,  and 
even  the  marks  of  punctuation  which  formed  the 
book  were  all  dire6lly  inspired  by  Him.  The  Bible, 
under  this  limiting  thought,  became  infallible 
upon  every  subje<5t,  from  the  creation  of  man  out 
of  the  du^  of  the  ground,  to  the  unveiling  of  the 
New  Jerusalem,  as  recorded  in  the  book  of  Reve- 
lation. 

The  dogma  of  infallibility  has  given  rise  to  the 
mo^  extravagant  beliefs  and  conceptions  of  the 

227 


THE  DIARY  OF 

human  mind ;  and  these,  as  has  been  tersely  said, 
''grew  up  under  every  kind  of  influence  except 
that  of  genuine  evidence."  The  letter  of  Chris- 
tianity, grafted  upon  the  decaying  §tock  of 
Rome's  former  paganism,  blossomed  anew  as  a 
religious  sy^em,  and  flourished  for  centuries, 
until  its  merciless  tyranny  and  awful  corruption 
finally  rent  it  asunder,  and  gave  rise  to  what 
promised  to  be  a  better  conception  of  the  mission 
and  teachings  of  Jesus. 

But  the  Chri^ian  church  that  today  assumes 
to  evangelize  the  world  through  preaching  the 
message  of  Jesus,  has  deadened  her  influence  by 
her  own  self-imposed  limitations.  She  preaches 
a  faith  that  is  largely  without  vitality,  and  her 
creeds  lack  the  demonstrative  force  of  living 
Truth.  She  is  blind  to  the  fa6t  that  true  religion 
is  not  expressed  in  denominationalism  and  sectar- 
ianism, and  that  in  drawing  the  sharp  line  that 
she  does  between  the  religious  and  the  secular, 
she  has  placed  herself  in  an  attitude  of  prejudice 
and  suspicion  toward  new  revelations  that  is  fatal 
to  her  own  claims. 

Mankind  hunger  for  God.  The  human  mind 
is  aware  of  that  within  it  "which  makes  for  right- 
eousness"— a  something  that  is  drawing  the  whole 
world  upward.  Its  heart-hunger  is  expressed  in 
a  re^less  search  for  the  means  of  satisfying  its 
desires  for  the  permanent  and  true.  It  rightly 
regards  these  desires  as  prophetic  of  that  which 
will  meet  them.  It  turns  to  the  Christian  church, 
and  asks  for  a  living,  ever-present  God,  a  Father 

228 


JEAN   EVARTS 

who  is  immanent,  and  who  will  love  mankind,  care 
for  them,  and  heal  their  diseases.  The  Church 
holds  out  promises  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  con- 
tingent upon  certain  conditions  to  be  met  here; 
but  it  offers  little  surcease  from  sorrow,  sickness 
or  misery  this  side  of  the  gateway  of  death.  Mor- 
tals are  left  to  infer  that  God  himself  made  a 
mi^ake  at  the  beginning  of  things,  and  was  forced 
to  invent  a  scheme  to  redeem  His  own  failure. 

But  if  God  mi^akes,  what  hope  is  there  for 
man?  What  does  the  We^min^ler  Confession 
avail  the  honest  mind  that  is  seeking  to  know  and 
manife^  Truth  in  this  life?  What  does  the 
maje^y  of  the  Infinite  mean  to  the  man  who  be- 
holds the  tawdry  earth-trappings,  the  smoke  of 
incense,  and  the  painted  images  that  are  employed 
in  His  worship?  What  love  for  the  Creator  do 
the  thought-fossils  of  foreordination,  original  sin, 
and  the  fall  of  man  inspire  in  the  human  brea^? 
Is  it  Grange  that,  in  the  absence  of  higher  ideals, 
mortal  man  turns  to  the  love  of  gold  and  the  fleet- 
ing material  pleasures  that  give  him  at  lea^  a 
moment's  forgetfulness  of  his  doom? 

With  God  there  is  no  respe6t  of  persons.  The 
restoration  of  the  spiritual  import  of  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  has  not  come  through  the  Chri^ian 
church  for  the  obvious  reason  that  she  was  not 
prepared  for  such  a  revelation.  Her  feeble  faith, 
her  lack  of  spiritual  under^anding,  her  fixed  be- 
lief in  sentient  matter  and  the  power  of  evil,  her 
materializing  theology  and  speculations,  her  ^ub- 
bornness  and  prejudice  in  the  face  of  new  revela- 

229 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

tions  and  the  discovery  of  scientific  truths,  her 
coldness  toward  the  poor  in  spirit  and  her  syco- 
phantic amiability  toward  the  wealthy  and  re- 
spe6table — these  are  but  a  few  of  the  obstacles 
that  have  barred  her  door  againSt  the  inflow  of 
Truth. 

The  human  mind  into  which  the  desire  for 
Truth  has  penetrated  wearies  of  being  told  that 
the  children  of  God  are  miserable  sinners,  worms 
of  the  earth,  outca^s  through  the  fall  of  a  myth- 
ical Adam.  It  wearies  of  centuries  of  vain  wan- 
dering amid  the  fogs  of  error.  It  drives  to  shake 
off  the  drag  of  hereditary  beliefs  and  false  educa- 
tion, and  rise,  here  and  now,  into  a  larger  freedom 
of  thought  and  action. 

The  Psalmist  has  said,  * '  The  Lord  is  nigh  unto 
aU  them  that  call  upon  him,  to  all  that  call  upon 
him  in  truth.''  It  seems  as  if  it  were  almost  by 
an  afterthought  that  he  added  the  vital  ^atement 
that  the  calling  upon  the  Lord  mu^  be  made  in 
truth.  But  the  Chri^ian  church  has  shut  her  eyes 
to  any  but  her  own  interpretations  of  Truth.  Be- 
cause she  has  sub^ituted  materiality  for  spirit- 
uality, she  has  lo^  the  power  to  heal  the  sick.  Be- 
cause she  can  not  comprehend  the  non-exigence 
of  matter,  she  denies  the  fa6t.  Yet  Jesus,  whose 
teachings  she  assumes  to  interpret,  plainly  showed 
that  the  material  senses  do  not  te^ify  of  Truth; 
and  scientific  methods  today  demand  that  one's 
conclusions  be  founded  on  something  more  sub- 
stantial than  the  evidence  of  the  physical  senses. 
The  unreality  of  the  material  concept  was  hinted 

230 


JEAN    EVARTS 

at  centuries  ago  by  Plato,  who  propounded  the 
theory  that  ideas,  or  abstract  forms,  are  the  only 
realities,  and  that  the  things  which  are  ab^radted 
from  these  forms  are  mere  shams.  In  speaking 
of  this  earthly  life  he  calls  it  the  dream  of  a  soul 
walking  among  images.  But  Plato  is  a  pagan; 
and  the  hungry  soul  that  turns  from  the  chaif  of 
theological  dogma  is  a  heretic! 

The  confusion  of  life  that  is  so  apparent  today 
results  from  the  human  mind's  ceaseless  endeavor 
to  reach  a  corre(5l  concept  of  that  which  con^i- 
tutes  Reality.  It  mu^  have  some  sort  of  ideal — 
it  mu^  imitate  something — for  its  nature  is  a  sim- 
ulation of  the  divine  nature  of  God  himself.  It 
will  follow  that  which  is  held  before  it  until  it 
either  rises  higher,  and  in  a  degree  out  of  itself — 
or  falis  into  the  ditch.  In  the  seeming  absence  of 
the  true  under^nding  of  God,  men  dissipate 
their  energies  in  a  selfish  scramble  for  material 
possessions — even  though  they  know  that  these 
will  not  yield  lasting  satisfa6lion.  Leaving  the 
spiritual  nature  to  atrophy  beneath  the  debris  of 
materialism,  they  wear  themselves  out  in  life's 
drudgery,  monotony,  and  utter  purposelessness. 

Religion  has  been  sadly  misinterpreted  to  the 
human  mind.  It  is  more  than  feeble  sentiment, 
more  than  re^raint  of  inclination  or  in^indl — it  is 
va^ly  more  than  resignation  and  subordination 
to  material  concepts.  It  is  that  which  binds  men 
to  Life  itself ;  it  is  the  core,  the  heart,  the  soul,  the 
very  essence  of  man — it  is  the  Principle  of  the 
Universe — Love.     It  cannot  be  compressed  into 

231 


THE  DIARY  OF 

creed  or  dogma,  nor  narrowed  into  selfish  systems 
of  faith — it  cannot  be  monopolized  by  se6l  or  cult 
— nor  can  all  the  barriers  of  human  prejudice  and 
false  belief  that  fill  the  material  concept  of  the 
universe  keep  it  from  entering  the  human  mind 
and  driving  out  the  thieves  and  money  changers 
that  have  made  it  their  abode.  It  is  true  religion 
— Love — that  is  at  work  in  the  human  conscious- 
ness, birring  ancient  errors  to  their  very  founda- 
tions, that  it  may  ca^  them  out  and  give  their 
places  to  true  concepts  of  God  and  His  infinite 
manif elation.  It  is  Love — that  ''something  not 
ourselves"  within  us — that  is  drawing  the  human 
mind  upward — up,  up,  until  its  shackles  fall,  its 
fetters  loosen,  and  its  errors  melt — up,  out  of 
itself,  out  of  every  thought  of  powder  opposed  to 
God,  out  of  every  belief  of  God  as  the  creator  of 
an  imperfe6t  universe  and  a  man  that  could  fall 
— up  into  a  realization  of  those  things  which  God 
has  prepared  for  us,  which  have  been  from  the 
beginning,  where  the  light  of  Truth  reveals  Man 
as  the  immortal  image  and  likeness  of  Spirit,  the 
Father  himself. 

Mankind's  problems  are  spiritual,  not  ma- 
terial; and  so  the  world  turns  to  the  Christian 
church  for  guidance.  But  this  church,  as  its 
supreme  spiritual  leader,  has  ^ubbornly  refused 
to  share  in  the  expansion  of  the  human  mind — an 
expansion,  under  the  ^imulus  of  Truth,  which  is 
destined  to  dematerialize  the  world's  thought. 
EcclesiaSlical  vision  has  been  sadly  s.wry.  God 
does  not  work  through  fear    and    ignorance    to 

232 


JEAN   EVARTS 

frighten  His  children  into  the  Kingdom — He  is 
not  cajoled  or  wheedled  by  flattery — He  is  not  de- 
ceived byTiypocrisy — nor  is  He  coaxed  into  open- 
ing the  gates  of  Purgatory  by  the  chanting  of 
masses.  The  evangelization  of  the  world  is  a 
noble  ideal ;  but  how  shall  men  make  true  progress 
if  they  muSl  eventually  unlearn  such  wild  ex- 
travagances as  these,  that  are  still  taught  in  the 
name  of  religion?  The  Chri^ian  church  has  per- 
si^ed  through  nineteen  centuries  because,  in  its 
slow  progression  and  unpreparedness  for  the 
rapid  reception  of  Truth,  the  human  mind  has  de- 
manded a  spiritual  leader — has  demanded  a  sys- 
tem of  religious  thought  that  would  minister  to 
its  hopes  and  fears — has  demanded  an  outlet 
through  which  to  express  its  religious  in^in<5l — 
and  because,  greater  than  these,  it  con^ituted  the 
Chri^ian  church  cu^odian  of  the  letter  of  the 
Word,  believing  that  it  would  itself  some  day  rise 
into  a  greater  spiritual  under^anding  of  its  im- 
port— believing,  too,  that  through  the  mini^ra- 
tions  of  the  Church  it  would  be  prepared  for  the 
fulfilment  of  the  promised  second  coming  of  the 
Chri^ 

A  sy^em  that  depends  upon  human  credulity 
for  its  existence  mu^  fall  when  that  credulity 
yields  to  understanding.  The  desire  for  true 
growth  which  is  a6live  within  the  human  con- 
sciousness can  be  satisfied  only  b}'  fulfilling  God's 
law  of  progress.  We  ax)proach  that  which  we 
worship.  If  our  model  be  infinite  Mind,  we  move 
toward  it,  leaving  behind  us  shrine  and  temple, 


THE  DIARY  OF 

smoking  incense  aad  carven  image,  droning  prieSl 
and  chanting  prelate ;  we  turn  from  the  my^ry  of 
evil  to  the  simplicity  of  Good ;  we  accept  the  com- 
prehensive account  of  the  Creation  as  given  by 
the  Pentateuchal  writer,  who  records  that  "God 
saw  everything  that  he  had  made,  and,  behold,  it 
was  very  good;"  we  reject  the  ^atement  of  the 
material  concept  of  creation,  wherein  the  Jewish 
tribal  sense  of  Deity  formed  man  out  of  the  du^ 
of  the  ground  and  prepared  him  for  an  inevitable 
fall ;  we  realize  the  two-fold  character  of  the  book 
of  Genesis,  the  account  of  the  spiritual  creation, 
and  the  succeeding  ^atement  of  its  counterfeit, 
the  human  misapprehension  of  what  God  had 
done;  we  know  that  the  materiali^ic  account  is 
the  *  ^  Adam-dream, "  the  '*mi^"  which  has  be- 
fogged the  centuries,  and  which  ^ill  clouds  the 
human  sense  as  "the  same  veil  untaken  away;" 
we  know  that  the  carnal  mind  is  created  out  of 
the  du^,  and  therefore  cleaves  to  materialism ;  we 
know  that  Jesus 's  teachings  set  forth  this  view, 
and  that  he  indicated  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  life  in  a  sub^itution  of  Truth  for  fiction — Good 
for  the  false  sense  of  evil.  He  voiced  the  real,  in 
the  face  of  opposing  human  opinion;  and  he 
proved  his  words  by  his  deeds.  He  knew  that  his 
works  were  in  violation  of  so-called  physical  laws ; 
but  he  showed  them  to  reSt  squarely  upon  the  im- 
manence of  God  as  infinite  Good. 

To  overcome  evil,  the  human  mind  mu^  know 
that  it  is  unreal.  But  to  accept  the  truth  of  the 
unreality  of  evil  does  not  imply  any  license  to  in- 

234 


JEAN   EVARTS 

dulge  the  sense  of  evil  on  the  basis  of  its  nothing- 
ness; for  indulgence  of  evil  is  an  assertion  of  its 
reality.  Nor  does  the  acceptance  of  the  truth  of 
the  unreal  nature  of  evil  ju^ify  mankind  in  ignor- 
ing it.  Evil,  though  possessing  no  reality  or 
power  of  its  own,  is  nevertheless  accorded  these 
qualities  by  the  human  mind;  and  to  get  rid  of 
the  sense  of  evil  calls  for  vigorous  work,  based 
upon  true  knowledge,  and  sustained  by  a  faith 
that  amounts  to  under^anding.  Centuries  of  be- 
lief in  the  vicarious  atonement  of  Jesus  have  not 
eradicated  sin  and  discord  from  human  experi- 
ence; and  hundreds  of  se6ts  and  denominations, 
with  their  myriad  creeds  and  ceremonies,  their 
antagonisms  and  foolish  jealousies,  have  left  man- 
kind far  removed  from  the  spiritual  sense  of  their 
Creator,  with  the  veil  §till  untaken  away. 

Life  on  the  human  plane  is  what  we  are  alive 
to — the  things  that  we  are  conscious  of  make  up 
our  conscious  exigence.  The  shaping  of  con- 
sciousness is  a  fun6lion  of  our  receptivity,  and  it 
becomes  a  thing  of  beauty  and  rational  progres- 
sion, or  a  thing  of  shame  and  retrogression,  as  we 
are  open  to  the  influence  of  Truth  or  error.  To 
be  alive  to  the  things  of  the  carnal  mind  is  to  be 
spiritually  dead — and  that  is  death  indeed!  To 
cling  to  the  Jehovi^ic  concept  of  God  is  to  lose 
the  concept  of  Him  as  Love.  To  believe  in  matter 
as  sub^ance  is  to  deny  the  reality  of  Spirit.  There 
is  no  ob^ru6tion  in  the  upward  pathway  of  man- 
kind except  the  universal  pantheism  of  the  belief 
in  a  power  opposed  to  God.    This  belief  has  given 

235 


THE  DIARY  OF 

power  and  life  to  matter  in  human  thought,  and 
has  created  an  environment  of  malign  influences 
that  beset  the  mortal  on  every  side.  The  human 
mind,  thus  self-infe6led,  drags  out  a  weary  exig- 
ence of  death  in  life,  turning  hopelessly  to  creed 
and  do6trine,  to  physician  and  soothsayer,  know- 
ing that  it  bears  its  doom  ^mped  plainly  across 
it,  v/hich  no  human  means  can  avert. 

But  again  through  the  darkness  of  human  be- 
lief is  heard  the  clarion  call:  Awake!  ye  that 
slumber,  and  Chri^  shall  give  you  light!  For 
why  will  ye  die!  The  pure  Christianity  of  the 
Chri^  is  again  revealed  to  the  world,  and  all  who 
will  may  underhand  and  live ! 

The  ^atement  of  the  Chri^  Principle  which 
has  been  given  us  by  Mrs.  Eddy  has  not  come 
through  the  Chri^ian  churches — but  the  world  is 
responding  to  its  gentle  influence.  The  Chri^ 
has  not  appeared  in  the  skies,  mth  a  blare  of 
trumpets  and  a  display  of  earthly  pomp-^but  it 
has  been  revealed  as  ever-present  Good,  the  Love 
that  has  penetrated  the  density  of  human  thought 
and  rekindled  the  flame  of  spiritual  understand- 
ing. It  comes  as  a  disturber  of  comfortable  con- 
ventions and  listless  conformity — but  only  that 
the  tares  within  the  human  mind  may  be  rooted  up 
and  consumed. 

Neither  prelate  nor  doctor  has  ever  discovered 
any  logical  reason  why  human  beings  should  die 
— they  kill  themselves  with  their  false  beliefs. 
Death  is  not  a  cessation  of  Life,  but  a  stoppage  of 
the  simulated  activity  of  false  thought  which  con- 

236 


JEAN   EVARTS 

^itutes  the  human  consciousness.  Mortals  yield 
to  their  self-imposed  laws  of  life  in  matter — and 
then  receive  the  wages  of  their  sin,  death.  Life 
is  infinite,  and  cannot  be  reduced  to  the  finite. 
The  human  sense  of  life  is  a  series  of  ^ates  of 
consciousness,  and  its  pains  and  pleasures  are 
but  links  in  the  chain.  The  emptiness  of  the  Nir- 
vana of  the  Buddhii§tic  despiser  of  the  world  is  no 
greater  than  the  emptiness  of  the  mortal  sense  of 
life.  The  finite  human  mind  believes  that  all 
things  have  had  a  beginning,  and  that  God  created 
a  universe  of  matter  out  of  nothingness.  It  is 
true,  the  material  universe  has  been  created  out 
of  nothingness,  and  it  manife^s  the  evanescent 
nature  of  its  component.  But  its  creator  is  mor- 
tal mind  itself — a  perverted  sense  of  things  that 
misinterprets  Spirit  as  matter,  and  counterfeits 
the  law  of  spiritual  gravitation  in  the  human  law 
of  heredity,  the  drag  of  the  ages,  embodying  the 
sins  of  all  our  ance^ors,  and  making  the  helpless 
babe  of  today  partaker  of  the  doom  of  the  legend- 
ary Adam! 

The  true  plan  of  Redemption  is  actual  con- 
version of  the  human  mind — a  re-making  of  the 
human  consciousness  that  results  in  its  yielding 
in  every  particular  to  the  Divine.  The  mortal  and 
his  environment  are  not  to  be  moulded  and  re- 
shaped, but  a6tually  transformed  by  the  renewing 
of  the  mind.  To  ma^er  one's  environment  is,  as 
has  been  frequently  said,  to  have  the  world — nay, 
the  universe — in  one's  grasp.  But  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  grasp  of  the  spiritual  universe  will 

23' 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVAJITS 

remain  impossible  to  that  consciousness  in  which 
there  is  the  slighte:§t  taint  of  materiality;  while 
to  grasp  the  material  concept  of  the  universe  is 
but  to  see  it  turn  to  ashes  and  vanish  into  its 
native  nothingness. 


"The  human  race  is  progressing,"  he  saif  ^s 
he  concluded  his  talk  for  the  day ;  "its  moral  tem- 
perature "is  rising — it  has  got  to  rise,  for  there  is 
that  at  work  in  the  human  mentality  which  is 
defined  to  effect  its  complete  transformation,  by 
lifting  it  out  of  itself.  The  revelation  of  the 
spiritual  import  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  has 
already  come,  and  nothing  can  be  gained  by  re- 
sisting it  on  the  ground  that  it  did  not  come 
through  the  human  mind's  established  Church.  It 
came  as  God  himself  willed  that  it  should;  and  it 
is  teaching  men  that  the  Lord  is  available  to  all 
them  that  call  upon  Him  in  Truth.  As  in  the  fir§t 
century  of  our  era,  so  today,  honesty,  loyalty,  and 
unswerving  adherence  to  the  demonstrable  Chris- 
tianity of  Jesus  reveal  the  Father  as  that  ever- 
present  Love  which  meets  all  real  needs  of  the 
human  mind  to  eff:e6t  the  transformation  which 
awaits  it." 


MAY  25TH 


MAY  25TH 


E  have  had  much  to  say  about  the 
human  mind,  so-called,"  said  my 
friend,  after  he  had  greeted  me 
this  morning  and  seated  himself 
at  my  side;  *'and  we  have  sought 
to  show  how  in  Ms  every-day  life 
moital  man  does  not  see  real  things,  but  only  his 
thoughts  of  things.  To  this  is  due  his  resi^ance 
to  all  that  lies  beyond  the  range  of  his  limited 
vision.  Today  we  shall  consider  some  of  the 
criticisms  which  the  world  has  dire6ted  against 
the  truths  we  have  been  discussing,  and  shall  try 
to  .show  that  denial  of  spiritual  reality  has  arisen 
solely  from  the  finite  human  mind's  lack  of  com- 
prehension." 


The  resi^ance  which  the  human  mind  seems 
to  offer  to  the  spiritual  import  of  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  as  given  to  the  world  by  Mrs.  Eddy  varies 
with  the  density  of  this  so-called  mind's  ignorance 
regarding  itself  and  the  nature  of  the  divine  Mind 
and  the  spiritual  Creation,  including  Man  as 
God's  refle6lion.  No  man  has  ever  been  criticised 
as  Jesus  was,  and  if  the  spirit  of  the  present  age 
seems  more  tolerant  it  is  because  mankind  in  the 
intervening  centuries  have  advanced  at  lea^  a  de- 
gree out  of  the  dense  materialism  of  the  Augu^an 
era.  But  in  a  consideration  of  some  of  the  criti- 
cisms that  have  been  directed  again.^  the  Science 
of  Chri^ianity  we  mu§l  keep  clearly  in  thought 
the  fa6t  that  whatever  is  real   is   always   above 

241 


THE  DIARY  OF 

criticism,  and  that  the  human  mind  does  not  criti- 
cise real  things,  hut  only  its  concepts  of  things. 
Its  criticisms  are  directed  solely  against  its  own 
mental  pictures,  or  interpretations,  of  realities. 
These  interpretations  are  made  within  its  spur- 
ious mental  activity  under  the  influences  of  her- 
edity, education,  human  opinion,  and  the  supposed 
testimony  of  the  five  physical  senses. 

Criticisms  again^  the  '^ transcendentalism"  or 
''ultra-idealism"  of  the  Science  of  Christianity, 
as  formulated  by  Mrs.  Eddy,  arise  from  the 
human  mind's  resi^ance  to  the  premise  that  all 
things  are  mental.  To  this  mind  the  mental  nature 
of  a  supposedly  solid  material  obje6t  is  gross 
absurdity.  But  when  called  upon  to  explain  the 
true  nature  of  matter  it  confesses  its  utter  help- 
lessness— and  the  realm  of  the  mental  is  to  it  a  no 
less  unexplored  and  unmapped  region.  Mankind 
accept  what  to  them  is  obvious,  what  they  think 
they  see  about  them,  and  approve  the  method 
of  the  illustrious  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who  settled 
the  disputed  question  of  the  reality  of  matter  by 
stamping  upon  the  ground.  It  is  because  of  the 
acceptance  by  mankind  of  such  superficial  and  in- 
adequate proofs  as  this  that  the  reality  of  the 
spiritual  is  limited  and  all  but  denied.  It  is  be- 
cause the  Study  of  mind  has  been  restri6ted  by 
predicating  a  physical  and  material  basis  for 
mental  phenomena  that  the  so-called  mental 
sciences  have  been  so  barren  of  real  results.  Such 
sciences  treat  only  of  the  human  mind  and  its 
simulated  activities.     Knowledge    derived    from 


JEAN    EVARTS 

such  istudy  is  wholly  relative,  dealing  only  with 
phenomena  and  effe6ts,  never  with  absolute 
Cause.  True,  the  cataloguing  of  mental  phenom- 
ena may  be  interesting,  and  the  tabulating  of 
effects  has  led  to  much  that  is  seemingly  pra^ical 
to  the  human  mind.  But  the  que^ion  of  real 
progress  as  indicated  by  the  development  of  such 
knowledge  is  a  debatable  one,  for  the  undoubted 
progress  of  the  human  race  through  the  ages  is 
not  to  be  traced  to  the  discovery  and  amplification 
of  material  modes.  Its  cause  is  much  deeper 
seated,  even  in  Mind  itself,  whose  unfolding  ideas 
are  dimly  refle6led  in  the  human  consciousness. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  mankind  are 
dupes  of  their  own  physical  senses.  Blind  accept- 
ance of  the  so-called  testimony  of  these  senses, 
even  when  tempered  by  human  reasoning,  prev- 
ious training,  and  education,  has  led  to  the  sort 
of  exigence  which  is  called  human  life,  wherein 
through  a  few  short  years  belief  and  speculation 
are  externalized  in  a  medley  of  physical  pains 
and  pleasures,  joys  and  sorrows,  phenomena, 
eife6ls  and  relative  knowledge,  and  then  go  out. 
It  is  vain  for  mankind  to  insi^  that  such  a  life  is 
normal  and  the  plan  of  an  omnibeneficent  Creator, 
and  that  they  are  satisfied  with  such  an  exigence. 
Their  heart-yearnings,  even  in  the  mid^  of  the 
greater  material  pleasures,  even  where  the  en- 
vironment is  all  that  wealth  and  human  ingenuity 
can  purchase  or  devise,  give  such  ^atements  the 
lie.     The  average  life  history  of  mankind  is  one 

243 


THE  DIARY  OF 

of  blamed  hopes  and  futile  drivings  for  things 
that  cannot  satisfy. 

Physical  science  explains  nothing  in  the  causal 
sense.  Therefore,  as  an  ontological  fa6t,  it  may 
be  said  that  matter  does  not  exi^.  Nor  is  there 
such  a  thing  as  a  material  fa(?t,  for  fadts  are  men- 
tal and  exi^  in  Mind  only.  The  human  mind's 
knowledge  of  itself  and  its  environment  is  based 
upon  the  te^imony  which  it  believes  it  receives 
from  the  five  physical  senses.  Owing  to  its  essen- 
tially counterfeit  nature,  its  fir^  tendency  is  to 
ascribe  reality  to  that  which  is  unreal.  This  it 
must  do,  in  the  supposed  absence  of  Truth.  It  is 
quite  true  that  the  eye  cannot  tell  how  nor  why  it 
sees  material  objedts;  the  ear  cannot  say  how  it 
hears ;  nor  can  the  hands  inform  the  human  mind 
how  it  is  that  they  seem  to  be  able  to  awaken 
within  it  a  cognition  of  obje6ts  without.  Nor  can 
these  senses  say  why  it  is  that  they  render  such 
erroneous  reports,  reports  so  far  from  even  rela- 
tive truth  that,  could  we  not  by  reason  and  under- 
standing correct  our  sense-impressions,  we  would 
be  obliged  to  discredit  them  entirely.  Neither 
can  these  senses  tell  why  they  are  unable  to  testify 
of  the  existence  of  God,  of  Spirit,  of  Mind.  But 
the  stupendous  fa6l  remains  that  were  mankind 
left  to  the  te^imony  of  the  physical  senses  alone 
they  never  could  know  Him  at  all,  for  not  only  do 
these  senses  not  te^ify  of  Him,  hut  they  abso- 
lutely deny  His  exigence  and  the  existence  of  the 
spiritual  Universe.    Yet  the  sum  total  of  human 

214 


JEAN    EVAETS 

knowledge  is  based  upon  faith  in  teistimony  which 
denies  exigence  to  the  Creator! 

As  we  sit  here  and  look  out  upon  the  landscape 
that  Wretches  across  our  field  of  vision,  so  rich  in 
color,  so  diverse  in  form  and  expression,  the 
thought  that  all  that  we  see  is  wholly  within  our- 
selves comes  to  us  as  a  rude  shock.  Surely  the 
hill  that  gliistens  yonder  in  the  morning  sun  is  a 
very  real  hill,  solid  and  earthy,  and  the  trees  that 
crow^n  it  with  beauty  are  genuine  matter-sub- 
^ance!  The  sense  of  sight  tells  me  that  the  *'I" 
sees  the  hill  without  and  is  aware  of  its  external 
and  separate  existence.  And  yet  I  mu^  confess 
that  the  question,  ''What  is  this  'I,'  and  what  is 
yonder  'hill,'  and  how  does  the  'I'  become  aware 
of  the  hill's  independent  exigence?"  awakens  no 
response  within  the  chambers  of  my  mentality. 

In  looking  at  the  hill  I  become  aware  of  a  sense 
of  its  actuality.  Cognition  takes  the  form  of  con- 
sciousness, for  I  become  conscious  of  those  objects 
at  which  I  look,  provided  there  is  sufficient  light 
to  make  them  visible.  Physical  sight,  therefore, 
is  wholly  dependent  upon  light.  In  the  absence  of 
light  I  mu§l  acquire  a  consciousness  of  external 
obje6ts  through  the  medium  of  one  or  more  of  the 
other  physical  senses.  "Light,"  to  quote  Pro- 
fessor C.  S.  Minot,  of  Harvard,  in  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Americana,  "is  a  series  of  undulations, 
but  we  do  not  perceive  the  undulations  as  such, 
but  as  red,  yellow,  and  green.  Objectively,  red, 
yellow,  and  green  do  not  exist.  Similarly  with 
the  vibrations  of  the  air,  certain  of  which  cause 

245 


THE  DIARY  OF 

the  sensation  of  sound,  which  is  purely  subje6live. 
But  the  sound  gives  us  information  concerning 
our  surroundings,  although  in  nature  external  to 
us  there  is  no  sound  at  all.  Similarly  all  our 
other  senses  report  to  us  circum^ances  and  con- 
ditions, but  always  the  report  is  unlike  the  ex- 
ternal reality.  Our  sensations  are  symbols  merely, 
not  images." 

Again  we  come  back  to  the  apparent  fa6t  that 
physical  .sense-testimony  is  due  to  undulations,  or 
vibrations,  and  that  our  awareness  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  material  object  is  a  state  of  conscious- 
ness. Consciousness  is  a  mental  condition.  Can 
we  say  that  it  is  due  to  vibrations,  or  even  Simu- 
lated by  them!  Vibrations  or  undulations, 
whether  of  the  air  or  of  the  suppositional  ether, 
do  fwt  enter  the  mental  chambers  of  mortals,  for 
between  the  realms  of  the  mental  and  the  material 
there  is  a  great  g-ulf  fixed.  Yet  in  reducing  the 
process  of  cognition  down  to  dex>endency  upon 
vibrations,  our  physical  scientists  have  carried  it 
almost  to  the  portal  of  mind,  for  vibrations,  even 
of  air  particles  or  gases,  are  much  less  material 
than  other  forms  of  supposed  material  activity, 
and  to  regard  as  causal  undulations  in  the  sup- 
positional realm  of  the  ether,  upon  which  scien- 
tists acknowledge  that  the  phenomenon  of  light 
depends,  or  to  which  it  is  due,  all  but  bridges 
the  gulf. 

It  is  much  more  difficult  to  support  the  theory 
of  matter-substance  than  of  Mind  as  substance. 
Physicists  could  not  even  attempt  an  explanation 

246 


JEAN    EVARTS 

of  material  phenomena  without  predicating  the 
exi'^tence  of  that  marvelous  medium  known  as  the 
ether,  in  which  all  phenomeiHi  muisl  occur.  But 
again,  the  properties  which  mu^  be  ascribed  to 
the  ether  in  order  to  account  for  material  phe- 
nomena make  it  far  more  mental  than  material, 
even  though  it  were  possible  to  reconcile  our 
though-t  to  its  being  much  more  rigid  than  steel, 
while  at  the  same  time  some  six  hundred  billion 
times  lighter  than  air.  At  7noSl,  the  ether  is  a 
theory,  necessary  to  the  explanation  on  a  material 
basis  of  the  phenomena  of  force. 

We  have  said  that  the  formerly  accepted 
''atomic  theory"  of  matter  is  now  rapidly  being 
superseded  by  the  ''el-e6tron  theory,"  matter 
being  regarded  as  built  up  of  electrons,  these 
being  ''superimposed  layers  of  positive  and  nega- 
tive ele6tricity. "  But  electricity  is  manifested  as 
force,  not  as  matter.  It  cannot  be  regarded  as 
having  any  of  the  properties  commonly  attributed 
to  matter,  such  as  weight,  extension,  etc.  Ma- 
terial objects  are  said  to  be  "extended  bodies." 
Now  by  what  process  of  mental  reasoning  can 
extended  bodies  be  built  up  out  of  non-extended 
units  f  How  can  an  aggregation  of  things  that  do 
not  admit  of  extension  be  formed  into  an  ex- 
tended object? 

The  trend  of  physical  science  today  is  toward 
a  single  inde§tru6tible  force,  or  sub^ance,  under- 
lying all  force  and  infinitely  varied  in  its  expres- 
sion. But  Jesus  said  this  same  thing  centuries 
ago,  and  he  proved  it  by  what  the  human  mind 

247 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

ignorantly  calls  miracles.  If  the  basis  of  matter 
is  electricity,  and  ele6lricity  is  a  phenomenon  of 
the  omnipresent  ether,  and  the  ether  is  far  more 
mental  than  material,  what  mu^  be  the  logical 
assumption,  even  from  the  Standpoint  of  physical 
science!  Jesus  called  this  underlying  sub^ance 
Spirit.  Paul  wrote,  ''God  quickeneth  all  things." 
Why  then  predicate  a  material  medium  as  the 
basis  of  energy?  For  if  God  exi^s  at  all.  He 
rimSt  be  infinite,  and  He  can  be  infinite  only  by 
being  Mind,  not  matter,  nor  a  union  of  mind  and 
matter.  And  infinite  Mind  must  include  all  things 
and  muisl  express  itself  in  an  infinite  variety  of 
ways,  this  infinite  expression  all  being  included 
within  Mind.  Physici^s  tell  us  that  much  more 
takes  place  in  the  ether  than  is  caught  by  the  five 
physical  senses.  Psychologists  say  that  the  realm 
of  mind  is  all  but  unexplored  territory.  Cannot 
the  one  who  makes  even  a  pretense  to  logical 
thinking  see  that  the  world  is  approaching  the 
acceptance  of  a  mental  basis  for  all  that  exists  f 
Did  not  Mrs.  Eddy  state  a  spiritual  fa6t  when  she 
wrote,  "There  is  no  life,  truth,  intelligence,  nor 
substance  in  matter.  All  is  infinite  Mind  and  its 
infinite  manifestation,  for  God  is  All-in-all"? 
(Science  and  Health,  page  468.) 

Mankind  are  educated  to  regard  the  human 
body  as  the  seat  of  life.  Yet  physiologists  tell  us 
that  this  animal  body,  this  pampered  and  petted 
thing  of  flesh  and  bones,  which  mortals  fear  and 
love,  despise  and  yet  cling  to  with  a  despairing 
sense  of  an  awful  power  of  both  good  and  evil 

248 


JEAN    EVABTS 

which  it  wields  over  them,  is  composed  of  85  per 
cent  water  and  15  per  cent  various  salts!  And 
the  brain,  mighty  engine  of  thought,  the  marvel- 
ous dynamo  supplying  the  vital  current  that  glows 
in  intelligence,  wisdom,  love,  and  power,  is  but  a 
compound  of  water  and  a  few  commonplace  ma- 
terial elements!  Are  body  and  brain  causes  or 
effects?  Can  a  chemical  union  of  oxygen,  hydro- 
gen, chlorine,  carbon  and  phosphorus  think?  Or 
is  the  power  to  think  which  the  brain  is  supposed 
to  possess  dependent  upon  ju^  the  proper  com- 
bination of  these  various  elements,  the  key  to 
which  has  not  yet  been  discovered  by  man?  What 
is  it  that  touches  inert  matter  with  a  magic  wand 
and  be^ows  upon  it  the  ability  to  originate 
thought  and  a6tion?  And  if,  as  the  discovery  of 
the  element  radium  indicates,  the  few  primary 
elements  to  which  all  matter  is  supposed  to  be 
reducible  are  in  reality  but  ^ates  of  one  single 
element,  the  one  unit  out  of  which  all  matter  is 
formed;  and  if  this  single  unit-subStance  is  the 
electron,  itself  composed  of  ele6lricity;  and  if 
ele6lricity  is  but  a  manife^ation  of  force  or  en- 
ergy; and  energy  is  immaterial,  intangible,  in- 
visible, without  extension,  without  weight,  without 
density,  without  mass — what  becomes  of  matter? 
Does  it  not  reduce  to  mental  a6tivity,  the  activity 
of  thought,  energized  thought-concepts  and  men- 
tal pi6lures,  held  within  that  sort  of  thought- 
activity  called  the  ''human  mind?" 

Professor  Oswald  has  said,  ''The  world  re- 
gards energy  as  only  something  imagined,  some- 

24S 


THE  DIARY  OF 

thing  abstra(5l,  whilst  matter  is  an  a6lual  fa6t.  I 
answer,  it  is  the  other  way  about !  Matter  is  only 
a  thing  imagined,  which  we  have  constru6ted  for 
ourselves,  very  imperfe6lly,  to  represent  the  con- 
^ant  element  in  the  changing  series  of  phenom- 
ena. Now  begin  to  understand  that  the  a6tual, 
i.  e.,  that  which  acts  upon  us,  is  only  energy,  we 
have  to  ascertain  by  te^s  in  what  relation  the  two 
conceptions  ^and,  and  the  result  is  without  a 
doubt  that  of  energy  alone  can  reality  be  predi- 
cated." 

And  what  is  the  consslant  element  in  the  chang- 
ing series  of  phenomena?  Even  as  we  have  said, 
Spirit,  for  matter  is  the  way  Spirit,  or  Soul,  or 
Substance  looks  to  the  human  mind — that  is,  it  is 
the  way  real  Sub^ance  is  interpreted  in  human 
thought.  As  far  back  as  the  third  century  Plotinus 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "External  obje6ts  present  us 
only  w^ith  appearances,  concerning  them,  there- 
fore, w^e  possess  opinions  rather  than  knowledge. 
Ideal  reality  exisSts  behind  appearances.  The  ob- 
je6t  perceived  is  different  from  the  mind  perceiv- 
ing it,  we  therefore  have  only  a  pi6ture  of  it. 
Ideal  truth  is  not  so  perceived. .  .The  wise  man 
recognizes  the  idea  of  good  within  him. .  .Seek  not 
to  realize  beauty  from  without,  but  from  within." 

If  matter  is  not  real  substance  the  mind  cannot 
become  aware  of  its  e.^^islence.  "VVe  repeat  what 
we  deduced  some  days  ago :  the  human  mind  does 
not  see  things,  but  only  its  thoughts,  its  own  men- 
tal concepts,  its  own  mental  pictures  of  things  as 
it  supposes  them  to  exist.    Nor  is  this  refuted  by 

250 


JEAN    EVARTS 

saying  that  the  eye  cannot  see  in  the  absence  of 
light,  in  the  absence  of  those  undulations  which 
are  supposed  to  evoke  the  sensation  of  sight 
within  the  brain,  and  thence  within  consciousness. 
True,  no  human  being  may  be  able  as  yet  to  prove 
that  real  sight  does  not  depend  upon  the  material 
eye,  nor  can  he  as  yet  prove  that  life  is  independ- 
ent of  the  physical  senses.  But  it  is  likewise  true 
that  no  human  being  ever  supposed  that  he  could 
do  so.  Such  a  thing  has  not  even  been  dreamed 
of  as  possible,  so  thoroughly  has  the  mortal  mind 
been  enslaved  to  its  oivn  false  beliefs.  Looking 
Readily  at  such  a  belief  of  limitation,  holding 
firmly  in  thought  the  impossibility  of  such  a  thing, 
the  mortal  sees  this  belief  externalized  in  a  sense 
of  the  utter  impossibility  of  the  thing,  and  he 
yields  to  what  to  him  is  only  too  obvious.  More, 
he  becomes  jealous  of  this  belief,  and  bitterly  re- 
sents any  attempts  to  refute  it.  Were  mankind 
advanced  to  a  higher  degree  of  spirituality  they 
w^ould  rei^tore  lost  sight  even  as  Jesus  did. 

Matter  consists  of  mental  pi6lures  held  within 
the  human  mind.  But  what,  then,  is  this  human 
mind?  It  is,  even  as  we  have  said,  an  aggrega- 
tion of  thoughts,  actively  engaged  in  forming  into 
mental  pi6lures.  The  human  mind  is  a  mass  of 
thought,  self-centered,  writhing,  twisting,  ebbing, 
flowing  thought,  the  a6tivity  of  which  constitutes 
consciousness  and  forms  the  mental  concepts 
which  make  up  the  so-called  universe  or  environ- 
ment of  the  mind.  These  pictures  are  formed 
under  the  thought-influences  of  education,  belief, 

251 


THE  DIARY  OF 

speculation,  etc.,  and  they  ^and  to  this  mind  as 
interpretations  of  real  things.  The  mental  imag- 
ery of  material  forms  represents  Substance  to 
this  mind,  although  it  is  not  Sub^ance  in  any 
sense  of  the  word.  Other  material  concepts,  of 
law,  of  love,  of  energy,  etc.,  represent  to  this  mind 
its  interpretations  of  Principle,  Love,  and  Spirit. 
Relative  material  truths  stand  for  Truth,  and  the 
mortal  sense  of  life  is  this  mind's  interpretation 
of  Life  itself.  Through  this  mass  that  constitutes 
the  human  mind  thoughts  are  constantly  passing, 
and  the  mind's  personality  is  therefore  ever 
shifting  and  changing.  Some  of  these  changes 
are  made  very  rapidly;  others  require  years  to 
effe6t.  But  the  entire  course  of  its  suppositional 
a(5tivity  on  this  plane  of  existence  seldom  exceeds 
a  century  in  time  as  reckoned  by  mankind,  and  the 
average  is  very  much  less. 

When  we  say  that  this  mind  believes  or  thinks, 
we  mean  that  within  this  mass  of  thought  there 
are  the  certain  thoughts  or  beliefs  to  which  we 
are  referring.  It  is  the  thought  itself  which  thinks 
— it  is  the  thought  itself  which  is  a6live — it  is  the 
thought  itself  which  seems  to  say,  '*I  am,"  or  "I 
think,"  or  ''There  is."  Where  do  these  thoughts 
come  from  that  are  ever  flowing  through  any  in- 
dividual human  mind?  From  the  mass  of  thought 
that  we  have,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  called 
the  ''communal  mortal  mind."  And  what  is  this! 
It  is  the  direct  opposite,  the  antitliesis,  of  infinite 
divine  Mind.  But  if  divine  Mind  is  infinite,  how 
can  it  have  an  opposite?     And  if  it  has  one,  the 

252 


JEAN   EVARTS 

opposite  mu^  be  included  within  divine  Mind 
itself.  If  the  opposite  of  infinite  Mind  is  real,  it 
is  forever  included  within  that  Mind. 

We  have  said  that  fa6ls  are  mental  things. 
Since  Mind  and  Spirit  are  synonymous  terms, 
fa6ls  are  spiritual  and  re^  upon  Principle,  the 
''that  by  which  all  else  is,"  or  Truth  itself.  In 
any  individual  case  there  can  be  but  one  ^ate- 
ment  of  the  fa6t,  or  truth,  regarding  it.  With 
regard  to  the  sum  of  2  and  2,  the  fa6t  is  that  2-1-2 
=4,  and  that  ends  it,  for  this  is  based  upon  Prin- 
ciple and  therefore  admits  of  no  further  ^ate- 
ment  or  change.  It  can  never  be  affected  or  altered 
in  any  way. 

Every  fa(5t  admits  of  an  endless  number  and 
variety  of  suppositional  opposites.  With  regard 
to  the  sum  of  2  and  2,  we  may  say  that  2-f-2=7, 
or  25,  or  50,  ad  infinitum,  each  such  ^atement 
being  a  suppositional  opposite  of  the  fa6t  in  the 
case,  each  being  without  Principle  upon  which  to 
re^,  and  each  being  wholly  without  power,  except 
as  we  voluntarily  concede  power  to  it.  Any  one 
of  these  suppositional  opposites  may  enter  my 
mentality  and  seem  to  assert  itself  as  a  fa6t,  but 
unless  I  believe  it  to  be  true  it  cannot  affe6t  me 
in  any  way.  The  moment  I  accept  any  one  of 
these  suppositional  opposites  as  true,  however, 
that  moment  it  begins  to  influence  me  and  every- 
thing with  which  I  have  to  do.  My  whole  outlook, 
my  entire  mental  experience,  every  mental  ^ate 
or  ^ate  of  consciousness  that  I  may  have  in  the 
future  will  be  colored  by  it  as  long  as  I  retain  it 

253 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

as  fa6t.  Should  I  discover  the  truth,  and  recog- 
nize the  erroneous  nature  of  the  belief  that  I  have 
been  holding,  my  whole  mental  outlook  will 
undergo  a  corresponding  change.  Or,  if  I  do  not 
discover  the  truth,  but  change  from  one  supposi- 
tional opposite  to  another,  from  one  belief  to  an- 
other, my  mental  ^ate  muit  likewise  experience  a 
corresponding  change,  and  there  will  follow  a 
corresponding  change  in  the  externalization  of 
this  mental  §late,  which  will  be  manifested  as  a 
change  in  my  environment  or  my  body  or  in  one 
or  more  of  the  obje6ts  or  affairs  with  which  my 
thought  is  active.  And,  since  none  of  these  sup- 
positional opposites  re^s  upon  Principle,  or 
Truth,  I  am  forced  to  change  my  belief  con^antly, 
for  none  will  meet  all  conditions  or  Stand  all  teSts. 

The  mental  realm  embraces  all  fa6ls.  The 
opposites  of  these  faSls  are  not  realities,  but  sup- 
positions. They  may  be  classed  as  speculations, 
beliefs,  theories,  or  hypotheses.  They  are  often 
referred  to  as  "claims"  when  they  seem  to  assert 
themselves  as  Truth.  Being  without  a  basis  of 
Truth,  they  change  continually — by  nature  they 
are  evanescent  and  fleeting,  resembling  thin  miSls 
that  seem  to  obscure  for  a  while,  but  melt  with  the 
mounting  sun.    In  other  words,  they  are  unreal. 

Much  confusion  has  arisen  with  regard  to  the 
terms  ''real"  and  "unreal."  But,  as  Spencer 
says,  the  test  of  reality  is  permanence,  and  what- 
ever passes  away  or  disappears  is  unreal.  The 
real  endures  forever.  Therefore  only  the  eternal 
is  real.     By  this  teSt  matter,  material  man,  the 

254 


JEAN    EVARTS 

material  universe,  the  whole  material  concept,  is 
unreal. 

A  few  days  ago  we  spoke  of  the  Nebular 
Hypothesis  of  the  origin  of  the  Solar  System,  and 
of  its  failure  to  explain  causation.  If  we  mentally 
resolve  the  material  universe  back  to  its  primitive 
^ate,  we  will  pass  from  this  solid,  rigid  earth, 
with  its  surrounding  atmosphere,  its  mountains 
and  ^.reams  and  its  varied  life,  back  to  a  vaSt 
volume  of  §lar-du^,  or  nebular  misl,  supposed  to 
be  the  gaseous  ^ate  of  matter-sub^ance.  Having 
done  this  we  have  exhau^ed  the  Nebular  Hypoth- 
esis— and  have  arrived  nowhere !  For  this  nebula 
is  supposed  to  hang  in  space,  or  drift,  or  move, 
all  according  to  fixed  laws.  But  the  laws  by  which 
it  exists  and  a6ls  are  mental  things,  and  mu^ 
exi^,  if  at  all,  in  a  mentality,  and  in  the  mentality 
in  which  they  originated.  Laws  are  not  matter- 
sub^ance ;  they  are  not  tangible  nor  visible.  They 
become  known  to  a  mentality  by  their  phenomena, 
or  effe6ts.  Moreover,  the  ^ar-du^,  or  gaseous 
vapor  of  which  the  nebula  is  composed,  cannot 
become  known  until  there  is  a  mind  to  know  it — 
and  until  there  is  such  a  mind  it  cannot  be  said  to 
have  existence  at  all.  Mind  mu^  have  exited 
before  the  nebula  was  formed;  and  the  formation 
of  the  nebula  mu^  have  followed  the  framing  of 
the  laws  by  which  it  exi^s  and  a6ls. 

But  to  resolve  the  universe  into  ^ar-dusl  or 
gases  does  not  begin  to  explain  its  origin  or  com- 
position. If  matter  is  ''superimposed  layers  of 
positive  and  negative  electricity,"  our  nebula  is 

255 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

an  ele6lrical  phenomenon,  moving  and  a6ling  in 
accordance  with  laws,  which  themselves  are  men- 
tal things.  Further,  the  universe  is  known  to 
mankind  only  through  the  so-called  physical 
senses,  hence  through  undulations  and  vibrations, 
from  which  the  human  mind  is  supposed  to  make 
up  the  pi6lures  that  con^itute  its  concept  of  a 
universe.  Again  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that 
the  universe  as  known  to  mortals  is  wholly  orien- 
tal and  consiMs  of  material  thought-interpreta- 
tions of  the  spiritual  Universe  which  lies  hack 
of  it.  In  other  words,  that  the  material  universe 
is  a  misstatement  of  the  spiritual  Universe,  and 
exi^s  only  in  the  false  thought  that  con^itutes 
the  communal  mortal  mind,  and  which  is  reflected 
by  individual  mortal  minds,  called  mankind. 

Spirit,  and  therefore  Sub^ance,  is  eternal. 
Matter  is  its  interpretation  in  suppositional 
thought.  Hence  the  origin  of  the  material  ''law 
of  the  conservation  of  matter."  Simulating  real 
Sub^ance,  matter  has  been  thought  to  be  inde- 
^ru6tible.  But  the  discovery  of  radio-a6livity  in 
our  own  day  has  put  this  theory  to  rout.  The  ele- 
ments, the  fundamental  con^ituents  of  matter, 
are  shown  to  "run  down."  True,  the  process  is 
a  very  slow  one — but  it  is  nevertheless  a  very  sure 
one,  and  presages  the  ultimate  de^ruclion  of  the 
whole  material  concept.  Even  to  materialiifts, 
matter  is  not  the  finable  thing  it  was  once  thought 
to  be;  and  to  those  who  can  look  further  and  dis- 
cern the  mental  nature  of  the  material  concept, 
its  ultimate  deslru6lion  is  inevitable. 

256 


JEAN    EVARTS 

The  greatest  things  with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned even  on  this  plane  of  exigence  are  wholly 
immaterial.  Moreover,  as  a  thing  becomes  less 
and  less  visibly  material  it  increases  in  power. 
Heat,  ^eam,  the  expansion  of  gases,  etc.,  afford 
examples  of  this  truth.  And  finally,  the  greatest 
acknowledged  power  of  all  is  the  power  of  mind, 
absolutely  invisible  to  the  physical  senses — nay, 
even  denied  by  them. 

The  power  of  love  is  incalculable,  far  greater 
than  the  suppositional  power  of  hatred,  far  ex- 
ceeding the  so-called  power  of  lu§t.  The  power  of 
truth  is  incomparable — the  power  of  error  is 
always  measurable,  limited,  quantitative.  And 
error  is  always  subject  to  truth — is  always  chang- 
ing— always  shifting — always  passing  into  new 
forms — never  permanent,  and  never  real,  but  van- 
ishing from  conscious  experience  when  truth  is 
applied  to  it.  The  mo^  terrible  evils  of  our 
civilization,  drunkenness,  debauchery,  enslaving 
habits,  lu^,  murder,  theft — what  are  these  when 
Truth  and  Love  are  applied?  What  became  of 
the  slave  traffic  in  our  country  when  Truth  and 
Love  were  asserted?  It  is  natural  that  evil  should 
flourish  as  long  as  it  is  held  to  be  truth — that 
error  should  follow  as  long  as  2-f  2  is  supposed  to 
be  7 — that  men  should  suffer  and  die  as  long  as 
matter  is  held  to  be  sentient  and  to  be  capable  of 
both  pain  and  pleasure — that  this  sense  of  exig- 
ence should  continue  to  be  transient  and  fleeting 
as  long  as  the  human  mind  passes  from  one  belief 
to  another,  without  finding  or  accepting  the  truth. 

257 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Finite  mind  is  not  equal  to  the  task  of  saying 
what  are  the  workings  of  the  infinite  Mind  which 
is  God,  but  we  do  know  that  infinite  Good  cannot 
create  nor  cause  evil,  nor  can  such  Mind  know  evil 
as  real.  Nor  can  evil  be  know^n  at  all,  for  a  thing 
is  known  only  when  it  is  known  to  be  real,  that  is, 
eternal.  All  other  knowing  is  but  relative.  It  is 
not  for  us  to  say  that  infinite  Mind  holds  various 
statements,  or  that  it  ever  looks  upon  supposi- 
tions. But  we  know  enough  to  put  into  pra^ice 
the  infinite  fa6l  that  no  creator  can  be  less  than 
good,  and  for  that  reason  cannot  create  evil,  and 
therefore  that  evil  is  known  as  such  only  to  the 
sense  of  evil,  which  sense  is  the  suppositional 
opposite  of  the  spiritual  sense  of  Good.  Being 
transitory,  such  sense  of  evil  is  not  real,  and  there 
is  no  need  of  asking  where  it  exi^s,  for  such  a 
que^ion  only  assumes  its  reality.  It  does  not 
exi'51  in  infinite  Mind,  and  therefore  has  no  exig- 
ence at  all.  The  finite  human  mind  may  argue 
that  it  cannot  underhand  such  logic.  But  what 
can  it  understand?  It  may  object  to  accepting 
things  on  faith;  but  it  needs  to  be  reminded  that 
nearly  everything  in  its  experience  is  accepted 
absolutely  on  faith.  Can  the  wise.^  savant  tell 
how  or  why  a  blade  of  grass  grows?  Can  the 
learned  academician  who  refuses  to  take  things 
on  faith  explain  how  the  tree  springs  from  the 
acorn?  Or  can  he  define  Life  and  Love?  Can  he 
say  what  holds  his  material  world  in  space?  Has 
he  ever  laid  a  hand  upon  the  great  cables  that  bind 
the  Stars  together?     What  can  the  human  mind 

258 


JEAN    EVARTS 

explain?  What  does  it  know,  beyond  its  own 
little  conceits  and  flimsy  beliefs  s  Is  it  competent 
to  draw  a  dividing  line  between  the  mental  and 
the  material?  Then  why  belittle  Mind  and  assume 
to  set  limits  to  the  Infinite?  Truth  is  known  only 
to  Truth — error  only  to  error.  What  can  the 
human  mind  know  of  reality  until  Knowledge, 
based  upon  absolute  Truth,  dispels  its  shadows? 

The  human  mind's  seeming  resistance  to  the 
spiritual  import  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  is  but 
another  phase  of  the  conflict  between  the  spiritual 
and  the  carnal,  which  shall  la^  until  the  latter  has 
been  overcome.  The  human  mind  is  forced  to 
change  continually  in  order  to  simulate  as  nearly 
as  possible  true  Being,  although  seeming  to  resi^ 
any  change  not  due  to  its  own  incentive.  Appar- 
ently it  is  willing  to  change  only  in  conformity  to 
its  own  interpretation  of  fa6ts.  Yet  it  persi^- 
ently  follows  any  model  held  before  it,  so  be  it 
that  it  can  believe  in  its  a6tuality.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  holding  Truth  constantly  before  it 
causes  it  to  change  to  conform  to  it — and  since 
the  mortal  is  but  error  of  ^atement,  or  belief,  a 
change  to  conform  to  Truth  mu^  mean  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  error,  and  therefore  of  the 
mortal.  When  the  error  that  2-f-2=7  changes  to 
conform  to  the  truth  that  2+2=4,  the  error  en- 
tirely disappears. 

The  mortal  mind,  so-called,  having  no  life  or 
power  of  its  own,  is  wholly  inert  as  far  as  real 
a(5livity  is  concerned.  To  this  mental  inertia  is 
due  much  of  the  criticism  dire6ted  against  Chris- 

259 


THE  DIARY  OF 

tianity.  Mental  inertia,  or  mental  laziness,  causes 
resi^ance  to  any  ^imulus  to  grasp  metaphysical 
fa^ts.  Great  mental  effort  is  generally  required 
for  the  proofs  of  spiritual  things  to  the  human 
consciousness,  even  as  similar  effort  is  necessary 
in  the  demonstration  of  mathematical  principles. 
Persistency  and  under^anding  alone  can  succeed 
in  either  case. 

Throughout  the  ages  there  has  been  nothing 
so  potent  to  ^ir  the  human  mind  into  raging 
hatred  as  the  Bible,  for  it  is  the  carrier  of  the 
Word  of  Truth  to  mankind,  and  teaches  the  noth- 
ingness of  the  human  concept.  Utterly  opposed 
by  nature  to  things  spiritual,  the  human  mind 
mu4l  of  necessity  seem  to  resi^  all  that  is  unlike 
itself.  Its  dense  ignorance  is  a  barrier  to  the 
entrance  of  real  Knowledge.  Believing  in  the 
reality  of  the  material  concept,  it  believes  in  the 
a6tuality  of  evil  as  a  power.  Ignorant  of  the  fa6t 
that  whatever  has  a  beginning  must  also  have  an 
end,  it  records  in  its  materiali^ic  account  of  the 
Creation  the  ^atement  that  the  Creator  formed 
the  universe  out  of  chaos,  nothingness,  and  made 
man  out  of  the  du^  of  the  ground.  Weaving  its 
materialistic  theology  into  a  form  that  it  can 
accept,  it  makes  death  the  gateway  through  which 
material  man  enters  the  realm  of  the  spiritual  and 
becomes  immortal.  Its  labors  have  resulted  in  a 
web  of  fanta^ic  design,  but  flimsy  in  texture,  con- 
taining few  strands  that  will  hold  when  the  te^ 
is  applied. 

26-0 


JEAN    EVARTS 

If  the  human  mind  should  reason  correctly 
even  from  its  own  premises,  it  would  fall  afoul  of 
its  processes  and  bring  out  a  reduclio  ad  ah- 
surdum.  For,  as  it  is  w^illing  to  admit,  the  exig- 
ence of  things  demands  a  creator,  and  the  exig- 
ence of  an  infinite  universe  calls  for  an  infinite 
creative  power.  In  the  words  of  Lord  Kelvin, 
* '  Scientific  thought  is  compelled  to  accept  the  idea 
of  Creative  Power."  But,  from  the  premise  of 
evil  in  the  world,  evil  that  is  tremendous  in  power 
and  extent,  logic  demands  a  creator  who  is  both 
good  and  evil.  Yet,  as  matter  is  superimposed 
layers  of  different  kinds  of  electricity,  and  elec- 
tricity is  a  form  of  force,  or  energy,  and  energy 
is  not  material,  and  whatever  is  not  material  mu^t 
be  mental  or  spiritual,  it  follows  that  matter  as 
substance  does  not  exi§t.  Therefore,  human  logic 
demands  a  creator  who  is  mind,  and  demands  that 
this  mind  express  itself  in  both  good  and  evil. 
Hence  the  imperfections  manife^ed  by  this  uni- 
verse call  for  a  creator  who,  though  infinite,  is 
imperfect.  And  since  the  creator  expresses  him- 
self in  both  good  and  evil,  there  can  be  no  possi- 
bility of  ever  overcoming  e\dl,  for  bj^  the  premise 
assumed  it  is  ordained  by  infinite  mind  as  a  part 
of  its  manife^ation. 

There  is  one  way  that  mortals  have  sought  to 
get  out  of  this  confusion  of  reasoning,  and  that  is 
to  consider  that  the  universe  is  but  an  imperfeCt 
representation  or  manifestation  of  a  perfeCt 
creator,  and  that  it  is  in  a  ^ate  of  evolution,  the 
ultimate  goal  being  perfection,  and  the  method  of 

261 


THE  DIARY  OF 

reaching  this  goal  being  j uglified  by  the  end,  for 
''all's  well  that  ends  well."  But  a  mind  that  is 
infinite  could  not  by  any  possibility  be  imperfe6t, 
for  imperfection  implies  limitation,  and  to  be  in- 
finite, a  thing  mu^  necessarily  be  whole,  sound, 
good,  without  flaw  or  element  of  decay.  And  in- 
finite Good  could  not  possibly  create  anything 
that  could  ever  be  less  than  perfe6t,  nor  could 
infinite  Good  create  anything  that  mu^  pass 
through  various  ^ages  of  imperfe6tion  before 
becoming  complete,  for  Mind's  method  of  creating 
is  an  in^antaneous  one — "God  spoke,  and  it  was 
done."  In  other  words,  God's  creatures  are  His 
ideas,  coexi^ent  with  Him  and  dwelling  forever 
perfe6t  in  infinite  Mi  :d,  and  the  *'a6t  of  creation" 
is  but  the  unfolding  of  these  ideas. 

The  human  mind  is  forever  falling  into  the  pit 
of  erroneous  reasoning.  For,  if  the  creative  mind 
is  infinite,  it  mui^t  include  everything,  even  to  in- 
cluding this  imperfect  manifestation,  called  the 
physical  universe  and  mortal  man.  And  thus  in- 
cluding imperfection,  the  creative  mind  mu^ 
itself  be  imperfe(5t.  Critics  of  the  ''idealism"  of 
true  Chri^ianity  admit  that  Mind  is  the  Creator, 
and  that  it  expresses  itself  through  ideas,  but 
insist  that  these  ideas  are  represented  by  matter. 
Relatively  true,  in  a  sense,  for  matter  is  the  way 
Spirit  looks  to  material  thought — in  other  words, 
it  is  the  way  Spirit  is  materially  interpreted  as 
sub.^ance  in  the  human  consciousness.  But  the 
mistake  of  the  ages  has  been   in  regarding   this 

262 


JEAN    EVARTS 

interpretation  as  real,  and  matter  as  the  abode  of 
life  and  intelligence. 

Departing  from  these  false  beliefs,  as  the  true 
import  of  Jesus 's  teachings  mu§t,  it  has  been  ex- 
posed to  the  criticism  of  not  being  ** evangelical." 
But  the  terms  ''evangelical"  and  "orthodox" 
have  been  sadly  confused  in  the  human  mind,  and 
man-made  theology  and  human  sy^ems  of  religion 
have  cast  their  heavy  shadows  upon  the  religion 
of  the  Ma^er.  His  teachings  aroused  the  human 
mind  to  such  terrible  fury  that  streams  ran  red 
with  the  blood  of  martyrs.  But  w^hen  his  pure 
spiritual  religion  had  been  warped  into  a  system 
of  theology  and  humanized  by  the  Emperor  Con- 
^antine,  when  it  had  been  Gripped  of  its  healing 
power  and  denuded  of  its  essential  spirituality, 
the  human  mind  accepted  it  and  wove  it  into  its 
political  sy^ems  and  w^orldly  schemes  for  the 
development  of  temporal  power  and  material 
wealth. 

True  religion  is  not  founded  upon  traditions, 
but  upon  demon^rable  Science.  Science  re^s 
upon  absolute  knowledge,  which  in  turn  is  founded 
upon  Truth — God,  the  infinite  Principle  which 
^ands  back  of  all  things  and  is  spiritually  dis- 
cerned. The  sad  failure  of  mankind  to  reach  God 
through  human  processes  of  reasoning  shows  the 
absolute  impossibility  of  reaching  a  spiritual  end 
through  material  beginnings.  Finite  sense  never 
can  reach  God,  for  as  it  approaches  infinite  Truth 
it  meets  wdth  problems  w^hich,  in  its  ignorance  of 
the  data  involved,  in  its  utter  misapprehension  of 

263 


THE  DIARY  OF 

the  Principle  which  alone  can  solve  them,  it  can- 
not handle.  Its  concept  of  God  has  undergone  a 
radical  change  since  the  beginning  of  recorded 
hi^ory,  and  as  this  has  little  by  little  been  puri- 
fied of  the  material  and  human,  real  progress  has 
been  made.  The  human  mind  cannot  grasp  the 
awful  significance  of  the  word  "infinite,"  nor  the 
tremendous  implications  which  such  an  expres- 
sion as  ''infinite  Mind"  mu§l  carry.  Such  a  mind 
must  of  YBTj  necessity  be  changeless,  the  same 
ye^erday,  today  and  forever.  It  cannot  be  moved 
by  tears  nor  entreaties,  it  cannot  be  importuned 
nor  wheedled,  threatened  nor  coaxed  into  yield- 
ing to  anything  less  than  the  infinite  Principle  by 
which  it  exisls  and  aSts.  Can  we  even  begin  to 
picture  to  ourselves  this  Stupendous  power  which 
we  call  6®d? — this  maje^ic,  infinitely  ponderous 
Omnipotence  which  moves  irresistibly,  incessantly 
onward,  conforming  absolutely  to  unvarying 
Principle,  never  deviating  one  iota  from  eternal 
Law — this  Omnipotence  which  by  very  necessity 
must  move  in  conformity  with  the  Principle  of 
Right — this  all-pervading  Spirit  which  mankind 
interpret  to  themselves  as  the  ''ether,"  as 
"force,"  as  "energy,"  as  "power" — this  all- 
inclusive  Intelligence,  knowing  all  things,  yet 
knowing  only  Good — this  infinite  Love  which  has 
created  all  things  for  its  own  pleasure,  that 
through  and  by  them  it  may  be  manifested  and 
expressed.  Mankind  cannot  possibly  bend  God 
to  conform  to  human  desires — the  ignorance  of 
the  darkened  human  mind  cannot  in§tru6t  infinite 

264 


JEAN    EVARTS 

Intelligence.  The  human  mind  will  have  to  emu- 
late Mohammed  by  going  to  the  mountain,  for, 
since  it  cannot  change  God,  who  is  immutably 
right,  changeless,  eternal,  it  will  have  to  change 
itself  if  it  would  work  up  out  of  the  mesmerism 
of  false  beliefs  into  the  freedom  of  Truth.  The 
ages  have  answered  the  que^ion,  "Can^  thou  by 
searching  find  out  Godl"  with  an  eternal  NO — 
nor  can  He  be  gained  by  a  leap,  as  Browning 
would  have  it.  He  is  Spirit,  and  He  mu^  be  dis- 
cerned and  worshipped  spiritually;  and  this  can 
be  done  only  as  the  material  is  exchanged  at 
every  point  for  the  spiritual,  as  the  false  material 
concept  yields  to  the  spiritual  fa6t,  and  God,  Man, 
and  the  Universe  are  seen  to  be  wholly  mental, 
spiritual,  and  perfect.  Jesus  taught  this  long 
ago,  but  his  teachings  were  sadly  materialized 
and  misinterpreted  by  the  human  mind.  He  did 
not  look  down  from  Heaven  and  in  pity  for  man- 
kind, whom  the  Father  had  created  capable  of 
sinning  and  falling,  ask  the  privilege  of  making 
the  necessary  sacrifice  to  redeem  them.  The  dis- 
torted pi61:ure  w^hich  Milton  framed  in  such  won- 
drously  beautiful  language  ca^  a  black  shadow 
across  the  pathway  of  the  human  mind  and  but 
deepened  the  ignorance  with  which  it  was  ^rug- 
gling.  The  coming  of  Jesus  had  no  such  human 
and  material  basis.  It  was  but  the  working  of  the 
eternal  law  of  Love,  that  Love  which  cannot  be 
excluded  even  from  the  dense^  human  mentality. 
The  spiritual  sense  dawned  upon  the  conscious- 
ness of  Jesus,  and  he  saw,  as  no  man   had    ever 

265 


THE  DIARY  OF 

seen  before,  the  infinitude  of  God  and  the  spirit- 
ual nature  of  all  things.  He  grew  into  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  Omnipotence,  the  Omnibenefi- 
cence,  the  Omnipresence  and  Omniscience  of  God, 
and  as  this  knowledge  increased,  so  did  its  mani- 
festations appear  ever  more  and  more  marvelous, 
until  through  complete  spiritualization  of  his 
thought  Jesus  rose  above  this  plane  of  exigence 
and  was  able  to  say, ' '  I  have  overcome  the  world. ' ' 
What  had  he  overcome?  Something  real?  No, 
he  had  overcome  the  human  sense  of  life  and  had 
shown  it  to  be  utterly  unreal.  He  found  mankind 
dismayed  by  the  seeming  tangles  and  perplexities 
of  exigence ;  but  in^ead  of  yielding  to  the  appar- 
ently hopeless  confusion  of  harmony  and  discord 
that  seemed  to  be  all  about  him,  he  turned  to  the 
Principle  which  he  knew  to  be  back  of  all  this 
phenomenal  existence,  and  bidding  the  te^imony 
of  the  physical  senses  depart  from  him,  together 
with  the  sense  of  evil  which  is  born  of  them,  he 
threw  off  the  limitations  of  material  sense  and 
rose  into  a  consciousness  of  the  allness  of  Good. 
And  he  told  mankind  that  they  should  do  likewise ; 
but  only  through  approaching  their  problem  in 
the  right  wag — not  by  leaning  upon  him  ajid  ex- 
pecf.ing  that  he  would  do  their  worh  for  them,  but 
by  obeying  his  commands — not  by  holding  the 
thought  that  salvation  from  sin  and  disease  is 
something  to  be  experienced  in  a  distant  future 
heaven,  but  that  it  is  the  certain  result  of  mental 
worl{,  and  that  such  work  must,  be  individual  and 
wMSt  be  taken  up  right  here  and  now,  even  in  the 

266 


JEAN   EVARTS 

very  midSl  of  the  fears  and  terrors  with  which 
this  mortal  life  is  filled.  Jesus  showed  that  in  the 
degree  that  mankind  approach  God  do  they 
assume  His  power.  This  power  being  without 
limit,  he  proved  that  the  only  limitations  a  man 
has  are  those  which  he  sets  himself  by  not  know- 
ing God,  and  Man  as  God's  image  and  likeness, 
reflecting  every  chara6teri.^ic  and  attribute  of 
infinite  Mind.  He  showed  that  the  hell  which 
mankind  experience  is  only  limitation,  and  that 
Heaven  is  harmony.  The  English  translation  of 
these  words  has  admirably  kept  the  spirit  of  his 
teachings,  for  the  word  heaven  is  often  used  syn- 
onymously with  harmony,  and  the  term  hell  is 
traceable  directly  to  the  old  English  verb:  to  be 
''helled"  about,  separated  from,  shut  off  from,  or 
limited.  The  mythologic  concept  of  heaven  as  a 
locality  mu^  yield  to  the  scientific  concept  of 
heaven  as  a  ^ate  of  mind,  the  attainment  of 
which  depends  entirely  upon  the  mental  processes 
of  mankind.  It  is  not  attained  by  rigid  conform- 
ity to  the  hard,  aggressive  morality  of  Puritan  or 
cell-bound  ascetic,  but  by  right  thinking,  which 
takes  outward  manife^ation  in  right  condu6l.  It 
is  reached  through  prayer  and  failing — affirma- 
tion of  God's  allness,  and  refraining  from  the 
material  sense  of  things.  Confucius  long  ago 
said,  "Heaven  means  principle."  Jesus  showed 
that  it  meant  a  Slate  of  consciousness — mental 
activity — in  absolute  harmony  with  infinite  Prin- 
ciple, the  Father  who  is  Love. 

267 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

The  mission  of  Jesus  to  mankind  was  to  show 
them  how  to  overcome  sin  and  its  consequences 
by  overcoming  the  thoughts  that  produce  them. 
Men  have  not  failed  through  lack  of  thought,  but 
from  misdire6led  thought.  They  have  failed  be- 
cause their  energies  have  been  dire6led  toward 
holding  thoughts  that  do  not  proceed  from  God, 
and  that  are,  therefore,  unreal  and  transitory, 
taking  the  form  of  speculation,  belief  and  mere 
hypothesis.  He  formulated  the  great  law  of  the 
externalization  of  thought,  and  showed  that  as  a 
man  thinketh,  so  is  he.  He  reduced  all  a6tion  to 
the  thought  which  it  externalized,  and  judged 
condu6l  wholly  by  the  motive  that  induced  it. 

For  every  thought  that  is  held  within  the  men- 
tality tends  to  become  externalized  in  some  form, 
and  like  always  produces  like.  The  seeds  that  are 
planted  in  the  human  mind  invariably  reproduce 
their  own  kind — as  invariably  as  the  corn  which 
the  farmer  plants  results  in  a  reproduction  of 
corn.  As  this  tremendous  fa6t  dawns  upon  the 
human  consciousness,  mankind  will  begin  to  trace 
every  condition  of  mind  or  environment  back  to 
the  thoughts  from  which  it  springs.  No  farmer 
would  deliberately  sow  weeds  where  he  expe(5ted 
a  crop  of  wheat — no  man  would  be  considered  sane 
who  filled  his  fields  with  thistles  in  the  expe6ta- 
tion  of  reaping  a  crop  of  grain.  Yet  the  man  who 
holds  thoughts  of  a  power  opposed  to  God,  who 
deliberately  or  ignorantly  holds  thoughts  of  sin, 
disease,  disa^er  and  discord,  is  mentally  sowing 
a  crop  of  noxious  weeds,  even  while  he  is  hoping 

268 


JEAN   EVARTS 

and  praying  to  reap  grain.  No  man  will  sow 
thoughts  of  self-pity  if  he  can  be  made  to  realize 
that  he  will  reap  a  harve^  of  untoward  condi- 
tions, for  God  cannot  be  pitied,  nor  can  His  chil- 
dren— and  mortal  man  is  but  a  false  mental  con- 
cept, wholly  subje6t  to  the  kind  of  thought  that  is 
directed  to  him,  not  to  be  pitied,  but  to  be  dis- 
solved through  the  solvent  power  of  infinite  Love, 
that  the  real  Man  that  is  behind  the  false  concept 
may  appear.  Thought  is  not  a  mere  undefined, 
vague  abstraction,  but  is  a  vital  force,  the  mo^ 
subtle,  irresi^ible  force  with  which  we  have  to  do. 
No  sane  man  would  sow  lu^-thoughts  if  he  could 
look  into  the  future  and  behold  the  crop  of  poison- 
ous weeds  that  he  mu^  eventually  reap  in  bitter- 
ness and  woe;  no  right-minded  man  would  delib- 
erately sow  disease-thoughts  if  he  could  see  them 
outlined  later  in  hideous  forms  upon  his  own 
body ;  no  man  would  ever  think  of  sowing  thoughts 
of  a  power  opposed  to  God  if  he  could  be  made  to 
realize  that  every  bit  of  the  discord,  the  sorrow, 
misery,  failure,  lack,  and  utter  hopelessness  of 
this  life,  is  but  the  result  of  such  sowing.  As 
surely  as  the  farmer  reaps  what  he  sows,  ju^  so 
surely  do  mankind  reap  their  own  thoughts ;  today 
is  but  the  result  of  yesterday's  thinking;  tomor- 
row will  reflect  today ;  time  will  always  show  what 
thoughts  we  have  held,  and  there  is  no  escape 
from  it.  The  one  who  harbors  thoughts  of  selfish- 
ness, envy,  jealousy,  or  greed  is  pouring  into  his 
mentality  a  poison  more  subtle,  more  insidious  in 
its  workings,  than  the  awful    drug    that    trans- 

269 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

formed  the  humane  and  cultured  Dr.  Jekyll  into 
the  fiendish  Hyde. 

The  teachings  of  Jesus  have  been  formulated 
as  an  exa6t  science,  and  as  such  they  are  available 
to  all  mankind.  But  they  become  applied  science 
only  as  his  commands  are  obeyed  and  life  is  lived 
as  he  dire(5led  it  should  be.  The  rules  of  right 
thinking,  pure  motives,  unselfishness,  and  love 
for  all  mankind  muSt  be  accepted  and  demon- 
crated,  even  as  we  accept  and  demonCrate  the 
principles  of  mathematics,  if  we  would  solve 
mathematical  problems.  Personal  opinions  and 
personal  leadership  do  not  count  in  this  work. 
Great  truths  have  been  discovered  only  as  erron- 
eous opinions  have  been  laid  aside — when  the 
false  belief  that  the  earth  was  flat  was  discarded, 
Columbus  discovered  a  new  world.  ChriCianity 
is  discovered  to  be  scientific,  as  scientific  as  math- 
ematics, and  juC  as  available  to  the  one  who 
yields  to  its  demands.  We  find  no  difficulty  in 
yielding  to  those  demands  which  result  in  the  dis- 
covery of  laws  of  chemiCry,  of  astronomy,  or 
numbers.  Yet  these  are  far  less  important  than 
the  science  of  right  living — a  science  which  in- 
cludes all  these  and  vaCly  more.  Life  that  is  free 
from  sin,  disease  and  discord  is  possible  to  man- 
kind— not  only  possible,  but  is  demanded  by  that 
Father  whom  Jesus  revealed  as  infinite  Love. 
Jesus  did  not  teach  that  such  a  §tate  of  mind 
could  be  attained  in  a  day,  for  the  coming  out  of 
a  confused  and  tangled  mental  State  into  spiritual 
consciousness  is  a  transformation    which    needs 

270 


JEAN    EVAKTS 

time  to  effe6t.  But  the  humbled  beginnings  re- 
sult in  increased  happiness  and  freedom,  if  an 
hone^  effort  is  made  to  obey  the  rules  laid  down, 
to  purify  thought  and  to  have  but  the  one  God, 
Good.  One  does  not  have  to  wait  until  he  can 
raise  the  dead  before  he  can  become  helpful,  for 
the  lea^  bit  of  knowledge  gained  advances  one  a 
^ep  higher  and  increases  one's  power  and  free- 
dom at  lea^  a  degree.  One  does  not  have  to  wait 
until  he  has  attained  perfe6lion  before  the  true 
Science  of  Christianity  becomes  available,  for,  as 
in  the  science  of  mathematics,  the  lea^  particle  of 
knowledge  can  be  used  at  once.  As  in  the  ^udy 
of  mathematics  only  the  one  who  is  ^udious  and 
consistently  obedient  to  the  demands  of  that 
science  makes  progress,  so  in  the  Science  of 
Christianity,  industry  and  right  application  alone 
result  in  solving  the  life  problem.  Sin  and  sick- 
ness will  yield  juSt  as  rapidly  as  the  human  belief 
of  their  necessity  and  unavoidability  yields.  The 
complete  readjustment  of  life  habits  that  is  re- 
quired may  take  time;  but  as  faith  grows  into 
understanding,  and  patience  suSlains  right  mo- 
tives, the  errors  that  seemed  so  tenacious  will 
gradually  go  out  from  consciousness,  and  man- 
kind will  begin  to  experience  that  freedom  which 
is  the  rightful  heritage  of  the  Sons  of  God. 

The  evils  which  beset  mankind  are  sin,  sick- 
ness and  death.  The  churches  endeavor  to  handle 
but  one  of  these,  leaving  sickness  and  death  to  the 
care  of  physicians.  It  is  admitted  that  the  mind 
has  some  influence  upon  the  body,  but  that  disease 

271 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

can  be  successfully  combated  only  by  the  use  of 
material  remedies.  Yet  no  man  dares  draw  the 
line  that  shall  limit  the  powers  of  mind.  Why  is 
it  that  a  man's  face  is  an  index  of  his  chara6lerf 
How  is  it  that  we  can  so  readily  read  what  it  is 
that  looks  out  from  his  eyes,  or  lurks  at  the  cor- 
ners of  his  mouth?  What  causes  the  hair  to 
blanch  or  the  blood  to  congeal?  If  it  is  fear,  is  it 
not  a  condition  of  mind?  We  need  not  multiply 
in^ances :  every  particle  of  the  body  and  of  the 
so-called  material  e^ivironment  is  the  work  of 
mind,  and  every  particle  of  it  is  absolutely  sub- 
ject to  mind.  What  keeps  the  heart  beating  and 
the  lungs  performing  their  fun6lions?  What 
dige^s  food,  all  unknown  to  us,  and  changes  it 
into  the  current  that  is  believed  to  sustain  life? 
It  is  the  human  mind,  simulating  the  divine  activ- 
ity and  counterfeiting  the  Life  that  is  God.  Jesus 
once  asked  his  hearers  if  by  taking  thought  they 
could  make  one  hair  either  white  or  black,  well 
knowing  that  they  could  not  because  of  their  own 
self-imposed  limitations.  But  the  mind  does  do 
this  very  thing,  and  even  greater  works,  when 
once  the  sense  of  limitation  has  been  lifted.  The 
human  mind  sees  its  beliefs,  and  brings  out  the 
fruits  of  its  own  thinking.  It  sees  disease 
thoughts,  manife^ed  as  disease  in  the  body,  and 
again  it  sees  these  beliefs  change  into  beliefs  of 
health,  with  a  corresponding  change  in  the  bodily 
condition — a  belief  of  disease  giving  place  to  a 
better  belief  of  health,  with  a  corresponding  im- 
provement in  the  tefilimony  which  the  physical 

272 


JEAN    EVARTS 

senses  are  supposed  to  furnish.  Yet  it  is  all  men- 
tal, all  the  simulated  aSlivity  of  the  human  so- 
called  mind,  a6iing  and  reacting  to  fit  itself  and 
its  environment  to  one  set  of  beliefs  or  another. 

If  heaven  is  the  place  of  bliss  that  orthodox 
theology  teaches  it  is,  why  do  mankind  resi^ 
death  tooth  and  nail,  employing  every  means 
available  for  warding  off  its  approach?  If  an 
omnipotent  and  omniscient  Creator  gave  man- 
kind drugs  to  be  used  as  medicine  for  the  healing 
of  disease,  why  is  it  that  in  His  infinite  wisdom 
He  did  not  give  remedies  that  w^ould  never  fail? 
Or  why  did  He  e^ablish  death,  or  permit  it  to  be 
e^ablished,  and  then  give  man  drugs  to  ward  it 
off?  Is  it  conceivable  that  if  God  wanted  to  cure 
mankind  He  would  give  them  remedies  that  could 
possibly  fail  of  their  purpose?  Did  God  create 
the  earth  as  medicine  for  mankind,  after  deciding 
that  mankind  should  be  sick?  If  the  herbs  that 
are  growing  all  around  us  were  created  by  God 
for  medicine,  He  mu§l  have  expe6ted  that  man- 
kind would  be  sick — but  if  that  is  the  case,  why 
did  He  not  create  medicines  that  would  eradicate 
sickness  and  death?  It  is  often  said  that  without 
pain  we  should  not  appreciate  joy,  and  suffering 
makes  us  value  health.  But  does  God  have  to 
suffer  that  He  may  enjoy  the  eternal  harmony  in 
which  He  dwells?  Can  we  even  imagine  the 
boundless  bliss  of  immortality?  Can  we  form  any 
conception  whatsoever  of  the  joy  of  beings  who 
are  immortal  and  who  manifest  Good  only,  and 
who  are  controlled  by  infinite  Love?    Mortal  man 

273 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

refle6ls  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  and  at  times 
he  believes  himself  happy.  But  when  is  he  mo^ 
happy?  Is  it  not  when  his  reflection  of  Good  ex- 
ceeds that  of  evil?  And  if  this  is  so,  would  not 
the  exclusive  refle(5tion  of  Good  result  in  supreme 
happiness?  It  is  freely  admitted  that  happiness 
is  directly  proportionate  to  mankind's  reflection 
of  Good.  What  then  would  be  the  ^tate  of  those 
who  reflected  Good  only?  Is  it  co^nceivable  that 
God  would  appreciate  harmony  to  a  greater  de- 
gree if  He  knew  discord!  And  if  He  really  knew 
it,  could  He  ever  work  out  of  it? 

Jesus  did  not  pray  to  a  lifeless  principle  to 
heal  the  sick,  for,  though  he  knew  God  to  be  Prin- 
ciple, the  ''that  by  which  all  is,"  he  also  knew 
Him  to  be  infinite  Intelligence  and  boundless 
Love.  Further,  he  knew  that  healing  did  not  de- 
pend upon  getting  God's  ear  and  convincing  Him 
of  the  justice  of  the  petitioner's  cause,  but  was  a 
function  of  knowing  the  infinitude  of  Good  and 
the  consequent  unreality  and  powerlessness  of 
evil.  As  has  been  beautifully  said,  "Prayer  is  not 
overcoming  God's  relu6tance;  it  is  laying  hold  of 
His  highe^  willingness."  Such  prayer  is  the 
only  God-ordained  medicine  ever  given  to  man- 
kind, and  it  is  absolutely  certain  in  its  effeSls. 

If  the  religion  of  Jesus  could  not  be  formu- 
lated as  an  exact  science  it  would  be  powerless  to 
heal  and  save  mankind.  He  rested  liis  teachings 
squarely  upon  the  immanence  of  God.  If  there  is 
a  God  at  all.  He  is  Spirit,  Mind.  If  matter  has 
real  exigence  it  mu^t  be  included  in  Mind,  and 

274 


JEAN   EVARTS 

therefore  mu§t  constitute  a  part  of  Mind's  infinite 
manife^ation.    In  this  case  it  would  be  eternal. 

But  matter  has  been  shown  to  be  but  a  mental 
concept  held  within  the  mass  of  false  thought 
whose  a6livity  con^itutes  the  human  conscious- 
ness. This  mind,  the  communal  mortal  mind, 
itself  the  counterfeit  of  divine  Mind,  is  but  its 
supposititious  opposite,  and  has  no  real  exi^nce, 
no  permanence.  God  as  infinite  Mind  includes  all 
real  mental  things,  all  fa6ts.  But  He  does  not  in- 
clude suppositions.  Then  do  suppositions  exi^f 
No,  for  by  Spencer's  definition  of  reality  they  are 
unreal,  and  their  exigence  is  supposititious,  a 
supposition  merely.  The  opposite  of  real  exist- 
ence is  supposititious  existence.  Who  holds  the 
supposition  of  human  existence!  Does  God?  No, 
the  supposition  exiSls  only  as  a  supposition,  apart 
from  all  reality;  and  it  is  this  supposition,  with 
all  that  it  entails  and  includes  as  consequences 
and  implications,  that  conBitutes  the  human,  ma- 
terial co7icept  of  existence,  including  the  false 
concept  of  God,  the  universe  and  man.  The  per- 
fe6t  Mind  that  is  God  holds  only  spiritual  fa(?ts, 
as  manifested  in  real  Knowledge,  the  knowledge 
of  Truth  only.  The  human  concept  of  material 
existence  has  juSt  as  much  reality  as  the  supposi- 
tion that  "I  am  what  I  am  not"  has — namely, 
none  whatever.  But  as  mortals  are  not  wholly 
devoid  of  good,  and  as  this  concept  of  existence 
seems  to  be  on  such  a  huge  scale,  and  as,  more- 
over, God  as  Love,  Life,  Mind,  Truth,  has  pene- 
trated this  supposititious  existence    to    such    an 

275 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

extent  and  is  everywhere  seen  to  an  even  greater 
degree  than  mortals  are  willing  to  admit,  this 
supposititious  existence  seems  to  partake  of  the 
nature  of  reality.  But  its  true  nature  becomes  at 
once  apparent  when  we  extract  from  it  those 
things  that  are  really  the  basis  of  thought  and 
endeavor,  and  that  constitute  the  things  that  even 
mortals  admit  to  be  alone  worth  while,  for  delve 
and  search  as  we  may,  we  at  la§t  come  face  to  face 
with  the  great  spiritual  fact  that  only  the  Good  is 
worth  while,  and  it  alone  is  permanent  and  true. 

Jesus  healed  the  sick  in^antaneously  because 
he  was  above  material  consciousness.  He  traced 
evil  dire6tly  to  its  origin,  the  human  mind,  when 
he  said,  ''For  out  of  the  heart  proceed  evil 
thoughts,  murders,  adulteries,  fornications,  thefts, 
false  witness,  blasphemies:  these  are  the  things 
which  defile  a  man."  In  other  words,  evil  is  not 
due  to  malign  influences  from  without,  to  chance, 
to  germs,  to  the  things  we  eat  or  to  the  forces  of 
Nature,  hut  to  one's  own  thoughts.  The  mater- 
ialist admits  that  the  physical  senses  con^itute 
the  only  source  of  evil.  But  physical  sense-te^i- 
mony  reduces  to  thought.  Hence  evil  reduces  to 
the  thought  of  evil — nothing  more.  Sin  is  but 
evil  thought ;  and  that  may  take  a  form  so  subtle 
as  to  deceive  mortals  into  accepting  it  as  Good. 
Fear  is  the  belief  in  evil,  and  as  such  is  lack  of 
faith  in  God — the  chief  of  sins.  To  fear  is  to  have 
other  Gods  than  the  one  God,  and  is  an  infra6tion 
of  the  first  commandment.  Paul  said,  ' '  Whatever 
is  not  of  faith  is  sin."    Fear  comes  only  through 

276 


JEAN   EVAETS 

the  material  senses,  and  these  fear  because  they 
can  not  know  God.  Mankind's  progress  has  been 
proportionate  to  their  freedom  from  the  limita- 
tions of  fear,  ignorance  and  false  belief.  Such 
freedom  has  been  the  invariable  accompaniment 
of  the  changing  concept  of  God,  from  the  anthro- 
pomorphism and  pantheism  of  the  savage,  from 
the  malign  powers  of  Nature  and  the  evil  spirits 
that  peopled  the  darkened  imagination  of  prim- 
eval man,  down  to  the  concept  which  Jesus  held 
of  God  as  Love. 

The  healing  work  of  Truth  was  not  a  tempor- 
ary necessity,  it  was  not  the  manife^ation  of  a 
changing  impulse  of  divine  Love,  it  was  not  for  a 
certain  period  only  and  employed  to  awe  a  few 
simple  peasant  folk  into  a  belief  in  the  Omnipo- 
tence of  God.  Such  false  ideas  have  caused  count- 
less thousands  to  drift  into  agno^icism  and  infi- 
delity, without  hope  or  expe6lation  of  light.  The 
Christ-healing,  dormant  for  sixteen  hundred 
years,  has  been  rediscovered  and  given  to  the 
world  as  an  exa6t  Science,  as  infallible  in  its  oper- 
ation and  results  as  the  science  of  mathematics. 
It  has  been  ^ated  as  a  Science  whose  fundamental 
principles  are  so  simple,  so  easy  of  comprehen- 
sion, that  they  may  be  proved  by  every  one  who 
is  willing  to  give  the  effort  and  consecration  that 
are  requisite  to  the  successful  accomplishment  of 
any  important  task.  The  world  need  no  longer 
lament  with  Tennyson:  "We  have  but  faith,  we 
cannot  know,  for  knowledge  is  of  things  we  see," 
for  the  knowledge  which  is  based  upon  the  things 

277 


THE  DIAKY  OF 

we  think  we  see  is  but  relative  human  knowledge, 
speculation  and  hypothesis,  based  upon  the  men- 
tal pi61:ures  which  we  hold  within  our  own  men- 
talities, and  is  unworthy  of  even  serious  thought. 
The  faith  that  pretends  to  believe  that  it  can  pray 
men's  souls  out  of  purgatory  is  but  a  flimsy  coun- 
terfeit of  that  faith  in  the  Omnipotence  of  God 
that  under^ands  the  mission  of  J  esus,  and  knows 
that  his  teachings  have  been  formulated  into  a 
demon^rable  Science  that  will  enable  its  posses- 
sor to  heal  the  sick  and  raise  the  dead  in  this  life, 
even  as  the  MaSler  and  his  early  followers  did. 
'*He  that  believeth  on  me,"  said  the  Ma^er,  ^'the 
works  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also — ."  In  the  He- 
brew tongue  the  word  ''belief"  means  "under- 
standing. "  It  is  not  mere  faith  in  the  atonement 
of  Jesus,  but  a  demon^rable  under^anding  of 
infinite  Principle,  God,  that  enables  mankind  to 
work  out  their  salvation.  But  one's  faith  muSl 
be  in  Good,  not  evil,  for  only  "according  to  your 
faith"  shall  you  receive — in  other  words,  you  will 
receive  good  only  in  proportion  to  your  willing- 
ness to  make  room  for  it,  and  to  your  mental 
capacity  to  spiritually  receive  and  assimilate  it. 
If  you  are  Still  talking  evil  in  your  daily  conver- 
sation, if  you  are  ^ill  writing  evil,  fearing  evil, 
anticipating  evil,  your  abundant  faith  in  evil, 
which  such  conduct  proves,  will  become  mani- 
fe§led  in  sin,  sickness  and  death.  "And  to  him 
that  ordereth  his  conversation  aright  will  I  show 
the  salvation  of  God" — to  him  who  voices  no  evil, 
whether  in  word  or  deed,  there  shall  no  evil  befall. 

278 


JEAN    EVARTS 

What  we  think,  is  for  us  our  mo^  important 
consideration  in  this  life.  Whether  we  are  con- 
scious of  it  or  not,  we  are  every  moment  accepting 
or  rejecting  some  belief,  whether  of  life  in  matter 
and  power  apart  from  God,  or  of  the  allness  of 
infinite  Mind;  we  are  every  instant  aligning 
ourselves  on  the  side  of  either  good  or  evil. 
Watchfulness  in  guarding  one 's  mentality  against 
the  entrance  of  false  thought,  therefore,  becomes 
mankind's  imperative  duty,  the  duty  of  self-pres- 
ervation. "Watch  ye  and  pray,"  warned  the 
Ma^er,  "lest  ye  enter  into  temptation."  And 
what  is  it  that  leads  into  temptation  but  one's 
thoughts,  which  take  outward  expression  in 
deeds? 

"God  spoke,  and  it  was  done."  Thought  al- 
ways precedes  aSiion.  TIig  human  mind  holds  a 
thought,  whether  of  good  or  evil,  and  this  thought 
eventually  takes  form  in  conduct,  simulating  the 
divine  law  of  externalization  of  God's  thought  in 
the  framing  of  worlds.  The  divine  process  of 
creating  is  mental — "God  spoke" — "God  said, 
let  there  be  light" — and  the  human  process  of 
creating  condu6t,  environment,  and  character, 
patterns  after  the  divine,  in  that  ivhat  men  think 
becomes  externalized  to  them  in  conscious  experi- 
ences, the  experiences  which  make  up  what  they 
call  life.  Whatsoever  men  think  and  do  in  secret 
is  eventually  proclaimed  from  the  housetops — 
every  thought  that  the  human  mind  harbors  is 
sooner  or  later  made  manife^  on  the  body  or  in 
the  environment — sooner  or  later  every  thought 

279 


THE  DIARY  OF 

that  we  think  is  either  found  out  by  those  about 
us,  or  a6tually  confessed  by  ourselves.  The 
drunkard  cannot  hide  his  thoughts,  the  thief  can- 
not check  the  proclamation  that  con^antly  issues 
from  his  face  and  bearing,  the  adulterer  cannot 
control  the  lewd  conversation  that  publishes  to 
the  world  the  kind  of  man  he  is — "the  show  of 
their  countenance  doth  witness  againSt  them ;  and 
they  declare  their  sin  as  Sodom,  they  hide  it  not." 
The  law  of  mental  sowing  is  as  exa6t  and  unfail- 
ing as  the  law  of  reproduction  of  the  seed  which 
we  sow  in  the  soil.  Every  thought-seed  will  re- 
turn to  us  in  a  plant  exa<5tly  like  itself.  Indulging 
cruel,  jealous,  envious  thoughts  toward  our  fellow 
men  is  the  pouring  of  venom  into  their  mentali- 
ties, a  poison  which  will  return  to  us  with  in- 
creased potency,  bringing  sickness,  failure,  and 
misery.  Every  unkind  word  that  we  voice  against 
another  is  a  thought-seed  that  we  sow,  and  time 
only  is  needed  to  return  to  us  its  like  in  a  four- 
fold crop  of  hideous  weeds — the  laiv  is  absolutely 
unfailing. 

The  religion  of  Jesus,  as  spiritually  inter- 
preted and  formulated  into  the  Science  of  Chris- 
tianity by  Mrs.  Eddy,  mu^  of  necessity  refute  the 
inconsi^encies  of  orthodox  theology,  especially 
the  fallacious  teaching  that  from  the  one  Cause, 
Spirit,  there  has  been  evolved  in  some  inexplic- 
able manner  both  the  mental  and  the  material,  the 
spiritual  and  the  carnal.  Jesus  did  not  teach  that 
in  order  to  experience  eternal  life  one  mu5l  die — 
nor  can  it  be  said  that  orthodox  ChriSlians  really 

280 


JEAN    EVARTS 

believe  this,  when  they  employ  every  possible 
means  to  avoid  dying.  Jesus  knew  that  men 
would  continue  to  suffer  and  die  until  they  had 
overcome  the  sinful  thinking  that  results  in  these 
things,  and  that  when  the  false  sense  of  life  in 
matter,  including  its  concomitants,  sin,  disease 
and  death,  had  been  exposed  and  resided  in  the 
way  he  taught  that  these  things  mu§t  be,  mankind 
would  gain  that  freedom  which  is  the  rightful 
heritage  of  the  children  of  God.  It  is  only  as  men 
grasp  the  spiritual  fa6t  of  the  Allness  of  God  that 
they  begin  to  realize  the  nothingness,  the  unreal- 
ity, of  matter  and  the  material  concept.  Freedom 
from  error  and  its  consequences  is  not  to  be 
gained  at  a  bound.  As  in  teaching  a  child  the 
science  of  mathematics  we  begin  with  the  multi- 
plication table,  even  though  we  may  look  ahead  to 
the  day  when  that  child  shall  solve  problems  in- 
volving the  mo^  ab^ruse  mathematical  princi- 
ples, so  in  teaching  and  practicing  the  Science  of 
Chri^ianity,  it  is  not  expelled  that  the  beginner, 
nor  the  one  who  has  applied  himself  to  the  §tudy 
and  practice  of  its  rules  for  a  few  years,  will  be 
able  to  raise  the  dead  or  attain  unto  that  ^ate  of 
spiritual  consciousness  where  one  no  longer  needs 
food  and  shelter  as  these  things  are  interpreted 
in  the  human  consciousness.  But  to  overcome 
errors  of  any  sort  without  the  use  of  material 
means,  to  heal  the  sick  without  employing  drugs, 
to  begin  to  love  one's  neighbor  as  one's  self,  to 
bar  the  doorway  of  mind  again^  what  we  know  to 
be  wrong  thoughts,  is  starting  at  the  numeration 

281 


THE  DIARY  OF 

table  of  Scientific  Chri^ianity — and  willingness 
to  do  this,  and  to  lovingly  and  patiently  take  each 
iStep  and  prove  the  Principle,  will  ultimately  re- 
sult in  the  acquiring  of  ''that  Mind  which  was  in 
Chri^  Jesus,"  to  which  sin,  sorrow,  and  death 
are  unknown.  To  heal  as  Jesus  did,  without  the 
use  of  drugs,  is  to  recognize  the  empirical  nature 
of  the  pra(5tice  of  drugging,  and  to  ^art  at  the 
beginning  of  the  demon^ration  of  God  as  All-in- 
all;  to  live  without  food  would  mean  that  we  had 
reached  that  ^age  of  our  mental  journey  where 
we  had  proved  that  life  is  not  in  matter;  to  raise 
the  dead  would  be  proof  of  our  triumph  over  ''the 
la^  enemy  that  shall  be  de^royed,"  and  would 
mark  all  but  the  final  mile^one,  where  we  shall 
^and  at  the  threshold  of  spiritual  consciousness, 
ready  for  the  ascension  out  of  material  sense,  the 
sense  of  matter  as  sub^ance,  into  the  spiritual 
consciousness  of  Spirit  as  subSlance  and  God  as 
Life,  eternal  and  harmonious.  Step  by  ^ep  will 
those  who  tru^  God  and  who  seek  *  *  fir^  the  king- 
dom" find  that  He  will  guide  them,  even  in  the  use 
of  material  things,  while  they  are  working  out 
their  salvation;  and  as  they  advance,  through 
patient,  loving  effort  to  prove  Him,  will  they  see 
such  temporary  means  fall  away,  giving  place  to 
higher  spiritual  modes  and  ways,  until  1  eaven, 
harmony,  at  la^  shall  have  been  attained.  Jesus 's 
confidence  in  the  power  of  infinite  Mind  to  over- 
come every  discord  was  complete.  His  wonderful 
demon^rations  showed  that  he  fully  understood 
all  so-called  "outer  conditions"  to  be  the  mani- 

28^ 


JEAN    EVARTS 

festation  of  inner  thoughts,  and  to  be  wholly  sub- 
je6t  to  thought.  His  miniSlry  was  a  beautifully 
consi^ent  example  of  unswerving  faith  in  the 
ever-presence  of  divine  Love,  and  its  ability  to 
meet  humanity's  needs.  And  he  left  the  world  the 
promise  that,  by  following  in  the  way  he  pointed 
out,  the  reproach  of  mankind  should  be  removed 
forever. 

"Ca.^  not  away,  therefore,  your  confidence, 
which  hath  great  recompense  of  reward." 

"And  the  Lord  shall  guide  thee  continually, 
and  satisfy  thy  soul  in  drouth,  and  make  fat  thy 
bones;  and  thou  shalt  be  like  a  watered  garden, 
and  like  a  spring  of  water,  whose  waters  fail  not." 


MAY  26TH 


MAY  26TH 


WAITED  for  liim  at  the  ledge 
this  morning,  and  as  the  birds 
poured  forth  their  songs  of  joy  my 
full  heart  responded.  The  tem- 
ped that  raged  within  my  mind 
when  I  was  brought  here  has 
passed  away  forever,  and  the  angry  waves  of 
human  emotion,  of  human  desire  and  fear,  have 
been  calmed.  Over  all  my  thought,  as  with  a  feel- 
ing of  indescribable  exhilaration  I  awaited  his 
coming,  there  was  a  sense  of  wonderful  peace  and 
great  thankfulness.  I  knew  that  the  pa§t  was 
gone  forever,  and  that  I  was  landing  at  the 
threshold  of  a  new  life  experience.  But  I  felt  no 
anxiety  to  read  the  future.  Like  the  pa^,  it  is  in 
God's  charge,  and  I  have  no  wish  to  borrow  from 
it.  Out  of  a  §tate  of  seeming  hopelessness,  of 
atheism,  and  blacked  despair,  I  have  been  drawn, 
0  so  gently,  so  lovingly,  to  my  Father,  and  He  has 
*' restored  my  soul,"  and  revealed  to  my  yearning 
thought  a  knowledge  of  Him  that  I  had  believed 
never  could  be  mine.  How  wonderful,  and  yet  how 
beautifully  natural  it  has  been!  No  miracle  has 
been  wrought — only  a  problem  solved.  And  the 
solution  has  come  because  the  error  which  had 
seemed  to  hold  me,  to  bind  me,  as  Jesus  said  that 
Satan  had  bound  the  afflicted  woman,  has  been  dis- 
placed from  my  consciousness  by  the  incoming 
Truth.  God's  methods  surely  are  simple — like 
Truth  itself,  for  it  is  only  error  that  is  complex 
and  inexplicable. 

287 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Then  I  saw  my  friend  coming  along  the  path 
below  me,  ju^  as  he  did  that  bright  morning  when 
he  came  into  my  life,  bringing  the  ''glad  tidings." 
Looking  np,  he  saw  me  and  waved  his  hand.  Then, 
leaning  far  over  the  ledge,  I  picked  a  wild  rose 
from  a  vine  that  was  clinging  to  the  sharp  rocks 
beneath,  and  threw  it  down  to  him. 

' '  We  have  come  back  again  to  the  very  serious 
que^ion  of  what  is  the  most  important  thing  for 
you  to  do  as  a  beginner  in  the  task  of  working  out 
your  salvation  according  to  the  understanding 
you  have  now  gained,"  he  said,  when  he  had  taken 
his  place  beside  me. 


We  have  seen  how  it  is  that  one's  thinking  de- 
termines his  ability  to  receive  good.  Therefore, 
the  mo^  important  thing  for  the  beginner  is  to 
think  God's  thoughts,  and  so  gain  spiritual  under- 
handing  and  spiritual  consciousness.  Mrs.  Eddy 
has  said,  ''Suppose  one  accident  happens  to  the 
eye,  another  to  the  ear,  and  so  on,  until  every  cor- 
poreal sense  is  quenched.  What  is  man's  remedy f 
To  die,  that  he  may  regain  these  senses?  Even 
then  he  muSl  gain  spiritual  understanding  and 
spiritual  sense  in  order  to  possess  immortal  con- 
sciousness. Earth's  preparatory  school  must  be 
improved  to  the  utmost."  (Science  and  Health, 
page  486.) 

The  point  for  you,  then,  is  to  improve  earth's 
preparatory  school  to  the  fullest  extent.  Let  go 
your  grasp  of  the  material.     Do  not  wa^e  any 

2S8 


JEAN    EVARTS 

further  time  thinking  of  pa^  error,  nor  worry 
about  any  possible  present  or  future  effects  from 
pa^  sin  or  wrong  thinking.  Remember,  "For  I 
will  be  merciful  to  their  unrighteousness,  and 
their  sins  and  their  iniquities  will  I  remember  no 
more."  Certainly  if  He  does  not  see  them,  you 
can  afford  to  forget  them.  Do  not  rehearse  error 
in  thought  or  conversation,  for  this  is  a  ghoulish 
a6tion,  dragging  forth  the  dead  to  prolong  its  false 
sense  of  life.  Say  with  God,  "Behold,  I  make  all 
things  new."  Thinking  God's  thoughts,  you  can 
say  with  Paul,  "Henceforth  know  we  no  man  after 
the  flesh;"  for  you  have  seen  that  the  real  man 
is  spiritual,  the  image  of  infinite  Mind;  and  the 
material,  mortal  man  is  a  thing  of  false  thought, 
a  pseudo-consciousness  of  good  and  evil.  Know- 
ing these  fa6ts,  and  thinking  God's  thoughts,  you 
can  "commit  thy  works  unto  the  Lord,  and  thy 
thoughts  shall  be  established."  What  are  God's 
thoughts?  "Thoughts  of  peace,  and  not  of  evil, 
to  give  you  an  expe6ted  end" — the  Kingdom  of 
Harmony. 

The  mo^  important  command  for  us  all  is, 
"Know  therefore  this  day,  and  consider  it  in  thine 
heart,  that  the  Lord,  he  is  God  in  heaven  above, 
and  upon  the  earth  beneath:  there  is  none  else." 
Mrs.  Eddy  has  pointed  out  that  the  spiritual  fa6t 
and  the  material  belief  of  things  are  opposites, 
and  that  the  fir^  idolatry  was  matter.  We  have 
seen  how,  by  following  out  the  implications  con- 
tained in  these  great  fa(5ts,  the  material  man  and 
the  material  universe  are    but    things    of    false 

289 


THE  DIARY  OF 

thought,  proje6led  within  a  consciousness  whose 
adlivity  is  the  suppositional  a6livity  of  unreal 
thought.  Mrs.  Eddy  has  not  said  that  there  are 
no  mountains,  no  streams,  or  clouds,  or  flowers,  or 
men.  But  she  has  said  that  the  human  concepts 
of  these  things  are  not  the  realities  of  God,  and 
are  not  permanent. 

Jesus  knew  that  dominion  is  Man's  birthright. 
But  he  also  knew  that  the  human  sense  of  his  fol- 
lowers was  clouded  with  worries  and  fears.  His 
fir^  ^ep  was  to  expose  these  errors,  and  then  caSt 
them  out  by  his  limitless  refle6tion  of  Love.  His 
^atement,  in  sub^ance,  to  his  anxious  disciples 
was :  If  you  will  slop  worrying  about  your  mater- 
ial bodies,  and  will  understand  that  Spirit  is  the 
only  source  of  supply,  you  will  then  find  your- 
selves in  the  right  mental  attitude  to  refle6t  the 
love  of  your  heavenly  Father.  He  said,  ''The  poor 
ye  have  always  with  you. ' '  This  might  well  mean 
that  they  were  clinging  so  tenaciously  to  thoughts 
of  poverty  and  limitation  that  they  could  not  see 
that  in  reality  they  were  rich,  crowned  with  the 
unnumbered  blessings  that  the  infinite  Father  is 
constantly  pouring  out  upon  his  children.  He 
strove  to  make  them  understand  that  the  body, 
including  all  environment,  was  to  be  transformed 
by  a  renewing  of  the  mind.  As  the  under^nding 
unfolds  that  God  is  all,  even  the  life  of  Man,  this 
life  will  be  manifesled  in  a  man  who  is  constantly 
ascending  in  the  scale  of  health,  harmony,  and  im- 
mortality. When  mortals  know  nothing  but  Good, 
they  will  know  nothing  materially.    The  final  Stage 

290 


JEAN    EVAETS 

will  then  have  been  reached,  and  the  mortal  will 
go  out,  will  cease  to  be.  When  the  mortal  ceases 
to  think  materially,  the  mortal  self  will  have  been 
overcome.  The  human  concept  will  then  have 
disappeared,  and  the  real  Man,  the  Man  that  has 
always  existed,  will  be  seen. 

The  law  of  God  gives  to  Man,  as  God's  reflec- 
tion, dominion  over  the  entire  Universe.  Acci- 
dents, and  all  that  "happens,"  the  casual  and  the 
merely  fortuitous,  would  be  unknown  if  men  were 
willing  to  acknowledge  but  one  law,  and  that  the 
law  of  God,  in  which  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
chance  or  coincidence,  but  only  a  mathematically 
exa6l  sequence  of  cause  and  effect.  The  tempera- 
ture of  the  atmosphere  would  have  no  effe6l  upon 
the  body,  fevers  could  not  ravish,  and  electricity, 
physics,  anatomy,  aerology,  hypnotism,  and  all 
the  other  imaginary  limitations  in  the  long  li^  of 
human-sense  beliefs,  which  claim  to  be  laws  and 
to  govern  man  and  the  universe,  would  be  annulled 
and  rendered  impotent,  if  men  would  ^op  believ- 
ing in  a  power  opposed  to  God. 

Our  thought  muM  be  spiritualized,  and  the 
spiritualization  muSl  continue,  regardless  of  the 
human  concept  of  time,  until  the  material  uni- 
verse becomes  dematerialized.  When  Jesus 
*' ascended  into  heaven,"  his  body  was  completely 
dematerialized  by  spiritualization  of  his  thought. 
Real  progress  can  never  be  made  as  long  as 
matter  is  held  to  be  sub^ance.  We  muSl  not  only 
believe  that  the  universe  and  mortal  man  are 
things  of  thought,  material  thought-concepts,  but 

291 


THE  DIARY  OF 

we  muSl  aSl  our  knowledge  of  this  faSl.  To  admit 
that  matter  does  not  exi^  as  a  reality,  and  yet  to 
proceed  upon  a  daily  course  of  exigence  which 
shows  that  matter  is  the  one  thing  that  we  are 
driving  for,  and  upon  which  we  think  our  very 
exigence  depends,  is  to  prove  very  clearly  that 
we  have  little  or  no  under^anding  of  the  spiritual 
import  of  Jesus 's  words.  Some  of  the  ancient 
philosophers  did  as  much  as  this.  And  many 
earned  thinkers  today  have  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  matter  is  a  mental  phenomenon.  But 
they  yield  to  its  mesmeric  influence,  they  fear  to 
put  their  knowledge  to  the  te^;  and  while  they 
know  that  thought  is  supreme,  and  that  to  think 
rightly  is  to  create,  they  fear  to  attempt  to  shape 
their  lives  accordingly.  If  we  would  make  progress 
in  working  out  our  salvation,  we  will  have  to  a6t 
our  knowledge  of  the  unreality  of  matter,  making 
only  those  concessions  which  suffer  certain  things 
to  be  so  for  the  present,  which  permit  certain 
modes  of  condu6l  to  continue  temporarily,  only 
because  of  our  incomplete  understanding,  or  be- 
cause by  so  doing  we  are  progressing  according 
to  the  di6tates  of  Wisdom. 

To  make  progress,  you  will  have  to  give  up 
the  idea  of  a  material  personality  called  by  your 
name  and  known  as  "you."  You  will  have  to 
cease  regarding  yourself  as  an  independent 
thinker,  however  much  this  may  seem  to  be  op- 
posed to  current  opinion.  The  only  thinker  is 
God;  and  His  thoughts  come  to  mankind.  It  is 
the  a6tivity  of  this  thought  that  con^itutes  the 

292 


JEAN    EVARTS 

real  consciousness  that  we  call  Man.  Mrs.  Eddy 
has  given  us  the  keynote  to  success:  ''Mental 
a6tivity  which  e^ablishes  syistematic  and  persist- 
ent right  thinking,  never  quesslioning,  never  doubt- 
ing, never  losing  time  w^orrying  about  results, 
never  delaying  error's  destru6tion  by  its  tempor- 
ary indulgence." 

Working  out  one's  salvation  is  an  individual 
problem,  and  while  one  can  receive  help  and  en- 
couragement from  others,  the  solution  of  the 
problem  depends  upon  his  own  persistent  efforts 
to  rid  his  mentality  of  the  false  thought  that  is 
active  therein,  and  to  replace  it  with  God's 
thoughts.  But  we  mu^  keep  always  in  mind  that 
it  is  God,  Truth,  that  is  doing  the  w^ork.  Of  our- 
selves we  can  do  nothing.  But  Truth  working  in 
the  human  consciousness  can  do  all  things.  We 
can  see  why  it  is  that  Mrs.  Eddy  insi^ed  that  the 
corner-^one  of  all  spiritual  building  is  purity. 
And  before  we  have  made  much  progress  we  shall 
see  that  next  to  purity  comes  persi^ency. 

And  it  means  work,  tireless,  loving,  incessant 
work.  The  false  concepts  do  not  always  dissolve 
easily ;  weariness  and  self-ju^ification  put  in  their 
pleas  early ;  and  many  a  one  who  has  made  a  fair 
iftart  has  yielded  to  the  argument  of  discourage- 
ment, and  abandoned  his  work.  But  there  can  be 
no  relief  in  this  course,  for  no  man's  work  will  be 
done  for  him.  The  death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross 
does  not  mean  that  we  will  be  given  a  transport 
to  unending  bliss.  The  awful  truth  still  rings  in 
our  thought  that  every  knee  mu^  bow  to  Him,  and 

293 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

every  tongue  confess  His  name,  before  that  ^te 
of  consciousness  which  we  call  Heaven  shall  be 
attained.  "Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling,"  not  po^poning  the  work  until 
you  get  through  mth  the  fear  and  the  trembling, 
*'for  it  is  God  which  worketh  in  you,  both  to  will 
and  to  do  of  His  good  pleasure."  Half-hearted- 
ness  will  not  bring  forth  the  fruits  you  seek.  Dis- 
honesty with  God  brings  swift  and  sure  retribu- 
tion. "All  things  are  yours,"  and  you  mu^  a6t 
as  possessing  all  power  and  good  from  your 
heavenly  Father.  You  mu^  go  about  your  daily 
course  knowing  that  all  is  Good,  and  preparing 
with  great  expe6lancy  for  its  manife^tion  in 
your  conscious  experience.  To  be  expe6tant  of 
good  is  to  be  receptive,  and  to  put  one's  self  in 
the  right  attitude  for  the  working  of  the  law  of 
externalization.  The  cares  and  riches  of  this  life, 
its  pleasures  and  material  sensations,  are  the 
thorns  which  would  choke  the  good  seed.  But  all 
these  depend  absolutely  upon  the  sense  of  matter 
for  their  existence. 

The  arguments  of  lack  of  preparation,  of  lack 
of  mental  discipline,  as  imparted  by  college  train- 
ing and  educational  processes,  often  seem  to  stand 
in  the  way.  But  the  education  which  the  world 
offers  does  not  solve  the  problem  of  life — it  only 
deepens  the  my^ery  and  drives  mortals  into 
agnosticism.  True  education  is  spiritual — it  is 
''the  fear  of  the  Lord,"  which,  in  turn,  is  the  be- 
ginning of  wisdom.  Remember  that  Solomon,  a 
very  wise  man,  once  said:    *'I  applied  mine  heart 

294 


JEAN    EVARTS 

to  know,  and  to  search,  and  to  seek  out  wisdom, 
and  the  reason  of  things,  and  to  know  the  wicked- 
ness of  folly,  even  of  foolishness  and  madness: 
Lo,  this  only  have  I  found,  that  God  hath  made 
man  upright;  but  they  have  sought  out  many  in- 
ventions." Many  inventions,  indeed !  The  inven- 
tions of  the  human  mind  are  almost  unthinkable 
in  their  conceit,  their  extravagance,  their  vanity 
and  utter  worthlessness !  No  wonder  "the  wis- 
dom of  the  world  is  foolishness  with  God!" 
Despite  seeming  failure,  despite  the  seeming  per- 
siiftence  of  material  conditions,  be  not  weary  in 
well  doing,  for  you  shall  reap,  as  the  Ma^er  said, 
if  you  faint  not.  No  man,  having  put  his  hand  to 
the  plow  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  Kingdom, 
and  he  may  be  very  sure  he  mil  not  enter  into  it 
until  he  has  made  himself  worthy.  "And  that 
servant  which  knew  his  Lord's  will,  and  prepared 
not  himself,  neither  did  according  to  his  will,  shall 
be  beaten  with  many  Stripes."  Having  received 
the  Truth,  having  seen  what  it  can  do  for  man- 
kind, but  refusing  to  accept  it  and  to  conform 
thought  to  it,  can  only  result  in  a  continuance  of 
discord,  sickness,  sorrow,  and  death,  until,  beaten 
by  the  many  "Stripes"  of  suffering,  all  turn  at 
laSt  to  Him  "who  healeth  all  thy  diseases." 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  laid  great  Stress  upon  the  im- 
portance of  "Standing  guard  at  the  portal  of 
thought."  The  secret  of  salvation  might  almoSt 
be  compressed  into  that  one  Statement.  For,  since 
the  mortal's  life  is  his  conscious  existence,  and 
consciousness  is  mental  a6tivity,  the  activity  of 

295 


THE  DIARY  OF 

thought,  whatever  the  mortal  experiences  "will  de- 
pend upon  the  quality  of  the  thought  he  enter- 
tains. Thought  is  the  activity  of  intelligence. 
True  thought  can  proceed  only  from  a6tual  knowl- 
edge, or  Truth.  Therefore,  speculation  as  to 
what  is  or  is  not,  wondering  what  is  going  to 
happen  tomorrow,  fear  for  the  future,  dread  and 
worry  thoughts,  do  not  proceed  from  a6tual 
knowing,  and  are  not  true  thoughts.  They  have, 
therefore,  only  the  power  that  mortals  give  them. 
They  can  be  put  out  of  consciousness,  and  the  con- 
cepts which  they  have  built  up  can  be  dissolved. 
This  is  the  Chri^  method  of  salvation.  If  we 
speculate  regarding  the  possibility  of  not  having 
enough  to  meet  tomorrow's  needs,  we  are  presum- 
ing on  God's  business,  for  it  is  His  business  to 
care  for  us,  and  it  is  our  business  to  know  that  He 
will  do  so.  To  speculate  regarding  Him  is  sin, 
breaking  the  very  firSt  and  greatest  of  all  the 
Commandments.  We  have  no  right  to  allow  such 
speculative  thought  to  enter  consciousness;  we 
have  no  right  to  harbor  such  thought,  for  by  doing 
so  we  are  prolonging  the  apparent  existence  of 
evil  and  witnessing  to  its  power,  thus  bearing 
false  witness.  We  have  no  right  even  to  listen  to 
such  thought,  for  it  is  an  insult  to  God,  to  infinite 
Intelligence.  W^e  can  reason  rightly  only  when 
our  reasoning  is  based  upon  fa6t;  therefore,  un- 
less we  reason  from  actual  knowledge,  our  results 
will  be  chaotic.  It  is  speculation  and  guesswork 
that  results  in  the  farce  called  human  life.  Would 
anyone  attempt  to  add  a  column  of  figures  on  the 

296 


JEAN    EVARTS 

basis  that  2+2=7,  and  5+4==either  6  or  8?  Cer- 
tainly not,  for  tlie  results  of  such  work  would  be 
chaotic.  It  is  such  results  that  we  get  when  we 
attempt  to  reason  from  false  or  speculative 
knowledge.  Unless  our  premises  are  based  upon 
fa6l,  our  conclusions  will  be  worthless,  and  if  we 
accept  such  conclusions  we  will  suffer  for  it. 

Hence  the  importance  of  landing  guard  at  the 
portal  of  thought,  and  admitting  only  thoughts  of 
Good.  For  the  thoughts  that  we  admit  will  form 
mental  images.  These  images  are  our  concepts, 
and  they  tend  to  become  externalized  in  conscious 
experience,  called  life.  We  can  make  life  what  we 
will :  it  is  all  a  question  of  the  thoughts  we  allow 
to  enter  consciousness  and  build  there.  For  build 
they  will,  and  we  profit  or  suffer  from  their  con- 
^ru6live  work.  The  only  possible  existence  evil 
can  have  is  the  exigence  we  are  willing  it  should 
have  within  our  mentalities.  It  has  been  said  of 
Jesus  that  his  true  and  conscious  being  never  left 
Heaven  for  earth.  It  abode  forever  above,  even 
while  mortals  believed  it  was  here.  He  once 
spoke  of  himself  as  "the  Son  of  Man  who  is  in 
Heaven."  Remarkable  words,  these,  for  they 
show  that  the  Chri^  was  unconscious  of  matter, 
sin,  disease,  and  death. 

Matter  owes  its  exigence  to  the  so-called  phy- 
sical senses.  Some  Bible  scholars  believe  that  a 
careful  ^udy  of  the  fourth  chapter  of  Matthew's 
Gospel  reveals  the  fa6t  that  the  devil  whidi 
tempted  the  Master  was  the    testimony    of    the 

297 


THE  DIARY  OF 

physical  senses.  To  their  arguments  Jesus  had 
but  one  reply:    *'Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan. '^ 

As  we  have  repeatedly  said,  the  physical 
senses  do  not  testify  of  anything.  They  do  not 
te^ify  of  disease,  nor  do  they  testify  of  cures. 
When  Truth  enters  the  human  consciousness  and 
dissolves  the  false  concepts  of  disease,  these  are 
replaced  by  better  concepts  of  health.  The  mortal 
believes  that  his  physical  senses  te^ify  of  re- 
^ored  health,  but  the  fa6l  is  that  he  is  simply 
viewing  a  better  concept,  better  thoughts,  within 
his  own  mentality. 

Man  is  spiritual,  despite  the  apparent  fa<5t 
that  he  seems  to  his  own  thought  to  be  attached  to 
a  material  body,  from  which  he  is  unable  to  get 
away.  But  Mrs.  Eddy  has  shown  us  that  mortal 
mind  and  body  are  one,  the  body  being  the  sub- 
^ratum,  or  grosser  portion  of  mortal  mind.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  the  mortal  man  is  not  di^in6t 
from  the  concept  of  body  to  the  extent  of  complete 
separation,  but  always  has  it  with  him  in  con- 
sciousness. Yet,  the  so-called  senses  of  this  con- 
cept of  body  give  the  mind  no  information  what- 
soever regarding  an  outside  world  of  matter.  In 
all  cognition  or  sense-perception,  the  mind  mu^ 
be  dire6led  to  the  obje6t  that  is  supposedly  being 
perceived.  We  do  not  hear  the  ticking  of  a  clock 
that  is  close  at  liand,  unless  the  thought  be 
directed  to  it.  If  a  weight  is  placed  upon  the 
liand,  a  mental  ^ate  is  supposed  to  be  produced 
through  the  sense  of  touch.  But  let  the  thouglit 
1)0  directed  away  from  the  weight  to  something 

298 


JF^AN    EVARTS 

else,  and  we  lose  consciousness  of  its  presence. 
We  may  remain  for  hours  in  the  presence  of  a 
loud  noise  without  being  conscious  of  it  unless 
the  thought  is  dire6ted  to  it.  These  are  all  com- 
mon psychological  fa6^s,  and  show  that  the  so- 
called  physical  senses  are  never  operative  unless 
the  mind  is  dire6led  to  that  which  is  supposed  to 
be  the  cause  of  the  sense-impression.  Sensation 
and  feeling  do  not  depend  upon  external  phenom- 
ena. Ages  ago  the  philosopher  Epi6letus  wrote : 
*'It  is  the  peculiar  quality  and  chara6ler  of  an 
undisciplined  man  and  a  man  of  the  world,  to  ex- 
pe6t  no  advantage  and  to  apprehend  no  mischief 
from  himself,  but  all  from  objects  without  him. 
Whereas  the  philosopher,  quite  the  contrary,  looks 
only  inward,  and  apprehends  no  good  or  evil  can 
happen  to  him  but  from  himself  alone."  So 
forcibly  did  this  tendency  of  mankind  to  impute 
feelings  to  external  phenomena  impress  Ruskin, 
that  he  called  it  the  Pathetic  Fallacy.  Conscious- 
ness is  not  to  be  ^ted  in  terms  of  an  outer  world, 
but  the  supposed  outer  world  muii  he  interpreted 
hy  consciousness.  There  is  no  external  power  to 
cope  with  and  overthrow.  The  mortal  concept  of 
Self  is  the  only  power  any  man,  woman,  or  child 
ever  has  had,  or  ever  will  have  to  contend  with, 
and  this  is  not  a  real  power. 

The  senses  seem  to  testify  of  the  universe  as 
formed  of  matter,  and  of  man  as  developing  from 
a  beast-like  primal  ance^or,  millions  of  years  be- 
fore the  dawn  of  history.  Evolution,  or  the  De- 
velopment Theory,  contains  much  that  is  illum- 

299 


THE  DIARY  OF 

inating  as  regards  the  history  of  mortal  thought, 
although  poets  and  philosophers  have  fought  in 
vain  against  acceptance  of  the  animal  origin  of 
man.  Science  seems  to  afford  indubitable  evi- 
dence of  such  origin ;  nor  need  we  disagree  with  it 
wholly  as  regards  the  origin  of  mortal  man. 

It  is  utterly  illogical  that  infinite  Mind  could 
produce  anything  imperfe6l,  or  work  through 
imperfect  agencies,  even  though  the  end  to  be 
attained  were  perfection.  The  infinite  creative 
Mind  expresses  itself  in  ideas,  according  to  the 
law  of  mental  a6lion.  The  unfolding  of  these 
ideas  is  the  Creation.  The  greatest  of  these  ideas 
is  Man,  the  image  and  likeness  of  Mind,  a  spiritual 
consciousness,  the  a6tivity  of  which  is  the  activity 
of  Mind's  thoughts.  Man  was  unfolded  as  an  idea 
of  Mind,  not  imperfe6t,  not  unfinished,  not  devel- 
oping slowly  through  chance  or  error,  or  through 
terrible  throes  of  suffering.  Man  did  not  develop 
as  the  plaything  of  chance.  He  did  not  spring 
from  slime  or  protoplasm,  nor  from  a  germ  of 
sentient  matter.  He  did  not  evolve  through  long 
series  of  disgu^ing  animal  forms  and  shapes 
hideous  to  behold.  Man  has  been  perfe6t  from  the 
beginning,  and  yet  without  beginning,  for  he  is 
co-eternal  with  God,  as  His  image  and  likeness. 
If  God  had  an  animal  origin,  if  He  developed  from 
protoplasm  into  infinite  Spirit,  through  animal 
forms,  then  Man  has  done  so  likewise.  But  this  is 
not  to  be  thought  of. 

We  have  spoken  frequently  of  the  so-called 
law  of  suppositional  opposites,  and  we  have  seen 

300 


JEAN    EVAETS 

how  every  reality  might  be  supposed  to  have  a 
corresponding  opposite  unreality.  We  have  also 
seen  that  everything,  even  matter  itself,  reSts 
upon  a  mental  basis. 

If  Man  is  something,  the  antipode  of  Man  is 
nothing.  And  it  is  exactly  at  this  point  that  the 
animal,  or  mortal,  man  begins.  Scienti^s  have 
already  traced  him  back  to  the  primal  ovum,  or 
germ.  But  there  they  halt,  and  either  submit  to 
the  lethargic  influence  of  Spencer's  limiting  phil- 
osophy, or  break  forth  into  insincere  raptures 
over  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  a  God  who  has 
planned  the  development  of  His  offspring — the 
offspring  of  Spirit! — through  a  process  that  is 
repugnant  even  to  the  materialistic  mortal  sense. 
At  this  point,  however,  logic  ^eps  in  and  finishes 
the  work  by  reducing  the  primal  germ  to  its  origi- 
nal nothingness.  The  real  Man  is  a  spiritual  con 
sciousness.  Its  suppositional  opposite,  the  mor- 
tal man,  is  a  simulated  consciousness.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  mortal  consciousness  has  taken 
place  through  countless  eons  of  time,  as  time  is 
reckoned  by  mankind.  Within  the  mortal  con- 
sciousness there  have  been  simulated  all  of  the 
a6tivities  and  fun6tions,  all  of  the  attributes  and 
qualities  of  the  real  Man.  Beginning  as  nothing, 
the  mortal  man  has  developed  through  possibly 
all  the  ^ages  of  the  mortal  concept  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  since  it  simulates  the  idea,  Man,  which 
includes  all  of  Mind's  ideas.  As  the  true  Man 
has  been  revealed  and  developed  within  infinite 
Mind,  so  the  mortal    man    has    been    developed 

301 


THE  DIARY  OF 

within  the  communal  mortal  mind,  always  rising 
from  the  lowe^  toward  the  highest,  for  its  devel- 
opment has  been  the  antithesis  of  the  unfolding 
of  the  real  Man.  At  an  unknown  time,  but  eons 
ago,  there  filtered  into  this  mortal  mind  the 
*' something  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness;" and  it  never  left,  but  has  continued  to 
build  and  add  to  itself.  Whence  did  it  come? 
From  divine  Mind.  And  wliat  will  it  accomplish  ? 
The  transformation  of  the  mortal  mind.  As  count- 
less ages  have  passed,  more  and  more  Truth  has 
found  its  way  into  this  suppositional  error,  called 
mortal  mind;  and  because  of  it,  mortal  man  has 
seemed  to  ascend  ever  higher  and  higher,  until 
he  ^ands  upon  his  comparatively  lofty  plane  to- 
day. His  present  mental  ^ate  is  but  a  single 
stage  in  his  development. 

There  is  little  que^ion  that  the  Development 
Theory  is  quite  corre6t  as  applied  to  the  mortal 
consciousness.  That  consciousness  would  be  today 
where  it  was  millions  of  years  ago,  but  for  the 
infiltration  of  Truth.  And  as  Truth  enters,  it 
clears  away  some  of  the  falsity  within,  to  make 
room  for  the  entrance  of  more  Truth.  All  of 
mortal  man's  progress  throughout  the  ages  has 
been  due  to  his  so-called  discoveries  of  Truth.  In 
every  case,  it  has  been  Truth  that  has  lifted  him 
a  degree  higher.  The  Development  Theory,  or 
the  theory  of  Evolution,  is  a  simulation  within 
mortal  thought  of  the  unfolding  of  Mind's  ideas, 
which  con>'5titutes  the  real  Creation.  As  Mind's 
ideas   are  all  subordinate  to  the    greates^fc    idea, 

302 


JEAN    EVARTS 

Man,  so  in  the  simulated  idea  of  the  earth,  there 
seems  to  have  been  a6tual  design  in  providing  for 
mortal  man's  needs  in  the  Coring  of  coal,  oil,  and 
other  natural  resources  which  the  mortal  is  using 
today.  The  law  of  gravitation  binds  mortal  man 
and  his  world  together — holds  him  to  his  material 
concept  of  earth — in  simulation  of  the  law  of  Love 
that  holds  together  the  ideas  of  infinite  Mind  that 
con^itute  the  spiritual  Creation,  including  Man, 
and  that  binds  Man  to  all  Good.  The  simulated 
Creation,  by  the  very  law  of  opposites,  had  to 
begin  at  the  loweSt,  the  point  fartheil  removed 
from  Truth.  It  began,  therefore,  at  nothing — it 
was  called  up  out  of  chaos,  nothingness,  and  its 
man  was  formed  out  of  the  du§t  of  the  ground. 
Its  development  has  been  upward,  as  Truth  has 
entci'ed  the  human  consciousness  and  revealed  the 
reality  of  things  to  an  increasingly  higher  degree. 
Yet,  though  we  have  said  that  the  mortal  mind  is 
con^antly  ascending,  we  do  not  mean  that  that 
sort  of  mind  is  improving,  but  that  it  is  in  reality 
dissolving,  thus  becoming  a  better  transparency 
through  which  the  real  Man  can  be  seen.  Mortal 
mind  does  not  improve;  it  gives  way,  dissolves, 
becomes  ever  more  and  more  tenuous  and  trans- 
parent, until  it  finally  passes  away  altogether. 
This  is  the  only  sort  of  evolution  that  it  can  ex- 
perience. And  Evolution  will  continue,  until  the 
mortal  consciousness  has  been  evolved  out  of 
itself,  until  it  has  been  emptied  of  all  false 
thought  and  become  filled  with  Truth.  Then  that 
consciousness  will  cease  its  simulated  exigence, 

303 


THE  DIARY  OF 

and  the  mortal  will  have  been  ''swallowed  up  in 
immortalitv. ' ' 


"And  now,"  he  said,  rising,  "I  think  you  are 
able  to  see  something  of  'the  grandeur  of  your 
outlook,  the  sublimity  of  your  hope,'  as  Mrs.  Eddy 
has  phrased  it.  Truth  is  at  work  within  your 
consciousness,  and  there  will  come  the  inevitable 
birring  up  of  all  that  seems  to  be  opposed  to  it. 
You  will  be  tried  and  tempted.  Then  will  come 
the  demand  for  prayer  and  fasting,  the  affirma- 
tion of  God's  allness,  and  the  turning  from  the 
material  sense  of  things.  But  remember  that  a 
wrong  thought  is  always  the  father  of  a  wrong 
a6tion,  and  it  can  be  made  to  vanish  into  nothing- 
ness if  you  will  but  put  a  right  thought  in  its  place. 
You  can  prove  that  Good  will  de^roy  evil  ju^  as 
quickly  and  ju^  as  surely  as  light  destroys  dark- 
ness. A  world  full  of  darkness  cannot  extinguish 
the  flame  of  the  tinie^  candle.  A  world  full  of 
error  cannot  overcome  the  slighted  ^atement  of 
Truth.  At  the  time  when  error's  arguments  seem 
to  be  mo§t  insistent,  you  may  be  on  the  threshold 
of  your  desired  demon^ration  of  their  nothing- 
ness. Then  remember,  '  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Keep 
ye  judgment,  and  do  righteousness :  for  my  salva- 
tion is  near  to  come,  and  my  righteousness  to  be 
revealed.'  It  is  His  righteousness,  His  right 
thoughts  within  your  consciousness,  that  are  to  be 
revealed ;  and  their  externalization  would  be  im- 
peded if  you  yielded  to  the  arguing  error  or  the 

304 


JEAN   EVARTS 

insidious  sugge^ions  of  discouragement.  The 
Psalmi^  tells  us  that  he  'waited  patiently'  for 
God,  and  that  he  was  lifted  out  of  an  horrible  pit 
and  his  feet  set  upon  a  rock.  In  the  hour  of  trial 
cling  to  your  understanding,  and  keep  before  you 
the  memory  of  Job,  who  said,  'But  He  knoweth 
the  way  that  I  take:  when  He  hath  tried  me,  I 
shall  come  forth  as  gold." 


305 


MAY  27TH 


MAY  27TH 


OU  have  asked  me,"  he  began  this 
morning,  ''if  you  could  not  look 
forward  to  a  life  devoted  to  the 
service  of  mankind,  in  bringing  to 
them  this  message  that  has  been 
unfolded  to  you,  and  in  laboring 
to  uplift  them,  and  re^ore  health  and  harmony 
through  the  application  of  the  Christ  Principle." 


The  task  of  devoting  your  life  to  the  applica- 
tion of  Truth  to  the  needs  of  humanity  is  not  to  be 
entered  upon  arbitrarily.  It  can  only  be  grown 
into,  as  the  understanding  of  God  expands  within 
the  human  consciousness;  and  every  Step  of  the 
way  mu^  be  clearly  proven.  The  harvest  is  white 
all  about  us,  and  the  laborers  are  few,  indeed,  even 
as  Jesus  said  in  his  time.  But  those  wdio  labor  in 
this  field  must  be  wise,  and  mu^  have  reached 
their  place  by  working  up  from  small  beginnings. 
Nearly  every  one  who  has  felt  the  curative  effects 
of  this  great  Principle,  and  who  gains  as  clear  an 
under^anding  of  Truth  as  you  have,  looks  for- 
ward to  giving  his  life  to  his  fellow  men.  And 
yet,  though  your  heart  is  filled  with  gratitude,  and 
you  are  eager  to  express  it,  there  is  but  one  thing 
for  you  to  do  now — go,  take  up  your  former  occu- 
pation where  you  left  it,  and  then  rise,  through 
constant  proofs  of  God's  power  and  presence,  up 
out  of  the  "mortal-mind  claim  of  business,"  and 
into  "my  Father's  business,"  the  infinite  task  of 
knowing  Him  and  refle6ting  Him  only.    Wherever 

309 


THE  DIARY  OF 

you  go,  whatever  your  hands  may  find  to  do,  your 
light  can  always  shine,  and  your  life  can  always 
atte^  the  ever-presence  of  Good.  Were  it  not  for 
the  Chri^-refle61:ion  seen  in  his  followers,  many 
who  have  learned  to  love  God  would  never  have 
gained  the  true  knowledge  of  Him  which  has  made 
such  love  possible.  Turned  aside  and  reje^ed  by 
the  world's  cruelty  and  indifference,  it  would  not 
have  been  possible  for  them  to  believe  that  God, 
whom  they  had  not  seen,  loved  them,  had  they  not 
beheld  this  love  refle6led  by  the  brother  whom 
the}'  knew  and  could  see  here  in  this  world.  Every 
deed  of  goodness,  however  small,  increases  the 
good  and  lessens  the  evil  in  human  experience. 
Kindness,  love,  obedience,  and  tru^  in  the  infinite 
goodness  of  God  are  the  little  things  over  which 
we  mu^  fir§t  be  faithful,  before  we  shall  be  made 
rulers  over  many  things.  Those  who  have  gained 
the  true  understanding  of  Jesus 's  mission  do  not 
proselyte,  but  their  lives  witness  to  their  faith, 
and  their  faith  develops  into  under^nding 
through  a6tual  proof.  Their  lamps  are  always 
trimmed  and  burning,  and  the  light  of  their  coun- 
tenance is  seen  afar  off. 

Do  not  fear  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  seek 
work.  There  is  much  to  be  done,  and  you  are 
needed.  Moreover,  the  business  world  offers  you 
a  wonderful  opportunity  to  ^and  as  a  witness  to 
God.  And  if  you  will  keep  con^antly  before  you 
the  fa6t  that  the  so-called  ''outer  world"  is  but 
the  externalization  within  your  consciousness  of 
your  ovm  thought,  you  will  not  fear  any  inability 

310 


JEAN   EVARTS 

to  externalize  the  right  kind  of  work  and  the  re- 
sources you  need.  In  reality,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  ' '  out-of-work. ' '  God  has  an  infinite  work, 
and  He  works  through  His  ideas,  of  which  you 
are  one.  I  know  that  men  cry  hard  times,  and 
there  seems  to  be  much  discord  and  confusion  in 
so-called  business.  Right  in  the  very  presence  of 
God's  infinite  business,  mortals  manife^  a  woeful 
sense  of  lack  of  work,  and  even  of  the  necessities 
of  exigence. 

But  we  mu^  remember  that  the  only  source  of 
evil  is  corporeal  sense,  the  supposed  te^imony  of 
the  physical  senses.  The  only  legitimate  law  oper- 
ating in  the  case  of  the  one  seeking  work  is  the 
law  of  supply.  God  is  infinite  supply — not  in- 
tangible, not  afar  off,  but  right  at  hand — and  you 
are  called  upon  to  witness  to  this  fa6t  and  to  prove 
it.  For  this  very  reason  you  likewise  seem  to  be 
called  upon  to  witness  to  its  direcSl  antithesis, 
according  to  the  so-called  law  of  suppositional 
opposites. 

You  are  in  reality  God's  idea  of  Himself,  and 
it  is  this  reality  that  you  are  driving  to  bring  out 
in  conscious  experience.  As  you  appeared  in  the 
line  of  Creation  you  were  given  your  place  and 
your  work.  That  work  is  the  refle6tion  of  infinite 
Mind,  regardless  of  how  it  may  become  external- 
ized in  your  conscious  experience.  Your  work  is 
to  know  God,  Good,  and  to  know  nothing  else.  You 
are  to  refle6t  Him  and  His  w^ork  at  all  times  and 
in  all  places.  As  He  is  Mind,  and  is  infinitely 
a6live,  you  mu^  refle6l  this  mental  a6tivity.    For 

311 


THE  DIAEY  OF 

us  who  are  working  out  our  salvation,  there  is  no 
possibility  of  ever  being  out  of  work.  We  never 
before  realized  that  we  had  so  much  work,  and 
such  glorious  opportunities  for  the  right  kind  of 
a6tivity. 

In  the  great  task  of  working  out  our  salvation 
we  early  need  to  be  warned  against  outlining  for 
the  future.  It  is  not  for  us  to  choose  and  fix  our 
own  lot.  We  cannot  flee  from  the  work  that  God 
has  appointed  us,  in  the  vain  hope  of  finding 
greater  blessings  in  some  other  occupation.  We 
muSt  wait  to  be  guided,  and  while  waiting,  we  mu^ 
do  what  our  hands  find  to  do.  Only  divine  Wis- 
dom can  choose  for  us  that  which  will  meet  our 
needs  for  growth  and  progress.  If  you  take  up 
again  the  line  of  work  you  were  following  when 
you  were  brought  here,  you  will  be  doing  what 
your  hands  find  to  do,  while  waiting  for  that  guid- 
ance which  never  fails,  and  which  never  comes  too 
late.  Your  environment,  whatever  it  may  seem 
to  be,  will  change  to  correspond  to  the  renewing 
of  your  mind. 

God  has  given  to  each  of  His  children  a  proper 
sphere  of  usefulness,  and  we  may  be  sure  He  is 
not  God  unless  He  has  done  this.  It  is  our  task 
to  go  forward  with  what  we  see  we  have,  laying 
every  desire  upon  the  altar  of  Righteousness,  and 
knowing  that  God  is  leading  us.  Mrs.  Eddy  has 
said,  and  proved,  that  when  we  work  with  true 
motives,  God  will  open  the  way  for  us.  She  has 
told  us  that  God  has  infinite  resources  wherewith 
to  bless  us,  and  that  we  already  have  these  re- 

312 


JEAN    EVARTS 

sources.  If  we  know  that  we  have  them,  and  a6t 
our  knowledge  of  this  spiritual  fa6t,  the  resources 
simply  mu^  become  externalized  in  our  conscious 
experience,  according  to  the  great  law  of  external- 
ization  of  thought,  which  we  have  been  discussing 
these  past  few  days. 

To  illustrate  further:  If  you  merely  read  a 
^atement  of  a  mathematical  principle,  without 
really  under^anding  it,  you  have  got  nothing 
from  the  reading.  The  principle  has  not  become 
3'ours,  and  you  cannot  apply  it.  But,  if  you  have 
read  it  underSlandingly,  it  does  become  yours,  and 
you  acquire  the  ability  to  use  it  and  obtain  desired 
results  therefrom.  If  you  merely  repeat  such 
statements  as,  God  is  Good,  God  is  infinite  Mind, 
etc.,  but  do  not  underhand  them,  and  do  not  a6t 
as  if  you  knew  them  to  be  true,  they  can  do  noth- 
ing for  you,  for  your  conduct  then  shows  that  you 
lack  faith  in  the  power  of  Truth.  This  lack  of 
faith  is  lack  of  understanding  of  Principle,  and  all 
efforts  to  solve  life's  problems  on  such  a  basis  will 
be  ju§t  as  futile  as  attempts  to  solve  mathematical 
problems  on  a  basis  of  absolute  di^ruSt  of  and 
disbelief  in  the  principles  on  which  the  science 
rests. 

Truth  con^itutes  God's  resources,  the  re- 
sources wherewith  He  blesses  mankind.  The  very 
fa6t  that  the  truths  of  Being  are  in  our  thought  at 
all,  that  we  can  read  them  or  hear  them  spoken, 
shows  that  they  are  within  our  mentalities.  It 
remains  for  us,  then,  to  grasp  them  and  hold  them 
within  consciousness,  and  conform  our  lives  to 

313 


THE  DIARY  OF 

them.  Doing  this,  they  will  form  into  mental  con- 
cepts and  become  externalized  within  conscious- 
ness as  supply,  work,  business,  environment,  etc. 
It  is  thus  that  holding  under^andingly  to  the 
truth  that  God  has  given  us  abundant  supplies  of 
all  needful  things,  will  result  in  these  being  exter- 
nalized as  the  supply  that  meets  our  needs.  It  is 
simply  the  working  of  our  much-discussed,  invari- 
able law. 

And  so  in  all  our  work.  Mere  repetition  of 
truthful  ^tements  will  accomplish  nothing,  A 
baby  can  be  taught  to  repeat  statements  of  fa6l, 
and  yet  be  utterly  unable  to  profit  from  them.  To 
say  we  are  not  sick  when  we  do  not  really  believe 
the  ^atement  to  be  true,  is  vain  repetition,  and 
dishone^y.  We  mu§l  know  this  statement  to  be 
true,  because  God's  children  cannot  be  sick,  and 
the  children  of  mortals  are  the  products  of  false 
thought.  Conforming  our  daily  living  to  this 
knowledge,  and  clinging  tenaciously  to  Truth, 
despite  the  apparent  te^imony  of  the  physical 
senses,  we  will  find  that  evil  will  flee  from  us,  and 
will  disappear  as  a  conscious  experience,  a  mani- 
fe^ation  of  that  which  is  opposed  to  Good.  All 
work,  all  business,  is  mental,  and  mental  work 
must  first  be  done  before  the  externalization  can 
take  place.  Truth  must  be  sent  out  before  us  into 
consciousness  to  clear  the  way.  It  will  then  re- 
turn and  take  us  unto  itself,  even  as  Jesus  said  he 
went  before  to  prepare  a  place  for  us,  and  would 
return  and  take  us  unto  himself,  that  where  he 

314 


JEAN    EVARTS 

was  we  might  be  also,  even  in  perfect  harmony, 
heaven. 

Again  let  us  emphasize  the  great  fa6ts  that 
there  can  be  no  * '  out-of-work, "  no  '  *  out-of-place, ' ' 
and  no  "out-of-business. "  Such  manifestations 
as  these  are  but  mortal  thoughts  externalized  to 
consciousness,  and  as  false  concepts  they  can  be 
dissolved  by  Truth  and  replaced  by  true  concepts, 
which  in  turn  will  become  externalized  as  abun- 
dant supply  for  every  need.  But  in  working  out 
of  such  false  beliefs,  there  muM  he  absolute  hon- 
e§ly  in  thought  and  motive,  and  perfect  conformity 
to  Principle,  as  this  has  been  revealed  to  us. 

If  we  are  logical  in  our  reasoning,  hone^  with 
God  and  with  ourselves,  and  free  from  bias  and 
the  prejudice  of  human  opinion,  we  will  take  for 
our  major  premise  the  statement  of  Truth  that 
"God  is  infinite  Mind,"  and  from  it  deduce  con- 
clusions somewhat  as  follows: 
God  is  infinite  Mind. 

Even  on  the  mortal  plane,  mind  expresses 
itself  in  ideas,  and  all  of  a  mind's  ideas  are 
required  to  fully  express  it. 
God,  as  Mind,  expresses  Himself  in  ideas. 
Being  Himself  infinite,  an  infinite  number 
of  ideas  will  be  required  to  fully  express 
Him. 
If  even  one  of  God's  ideas  were  out  of  place, 
or  discordant,  or  lacking  in  anything  need- 
ful, God  would  not  be  properly  or  fully 
expressed, 

315 


THE  DIARY  OF 

Every  idea  of  God  mu^  have  its  proper  supply 
and  equipment,  in  order  to  perform  its  part 
in  the  work  of  expressing  God  as  infinite 
Mind. 

If  even  a  single  idea  of  God's  infinite  number 
of  ideas,  regardless  of  its  magnitude  or 
relative  importance,  were  not  fully  supplied 
with  all  that  it  needs,  and  did  not  have  its 
rightful  work  and  place  and  business,  then 
there  would  be  error  in  the  expression  of 
infinite  Mind,  and  Mind  would  not  be  fully 
nor  properly  expressed. 

For  Mind  to  be  infinite,  it  mu^  necessarily  be 
perfe6t,  else  it  could  not  manife^  its  infini- 
tude. To  be  perfect  in  every  respe6t  means 
to  be  Good,  free  from  error  or  any  elements 
of  de^ru6lion  or  decay. 

But  if  there  is  any  error  in  the  expression  of 
infinite  Mind,  owing  to  failure  on  the  part 
of  that  Mind  to  properly  equip  and  supply 
its  ideas  which  express  it,  that  Mind  mu§l 
itself  be  erroneous,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  Good.  Ceasing  to  be  Good,  it  likewise 
ceases  to  be  infinite,  for  its  infinitude  is 
based  upon  its  perfection. 

Since  God  is  infinite  Mind,  He  is  the  only 
Cause  and  Creator.  It  follows,  therefore, 
that  nothing  can  exist  without  His  creative 
mandate. 

We,  therefore,  must  be  the  children  of  God, 
despite  the  apparent  teSlimony  of  the  phy- 

316 


JEAN    EVARTS 

sical  senses.  Since  God  is  Mind,  we,  as 
His  children,  mu^  be  His  ideas. 

It  logically  follows,  therefore,  that  we  musl 
have  all  we  need  at  all  times  to  express 
God.  We  have  our  proper  place,  our  busi- 
ness, and  our  supply.  And  as  God  is  in- 
finite, and  therefore  infinite  power,  there 
can  be  nothing  anywhere  that  can  in  any 
way  or  by  any  means  deprive  us  of  that 
which  we  need  to  express  Him.  We  cannot 
be  separated  in  anv  wav  from  over-present 
Good. 

Since  God  is  Mind,  His  supply  comes  to  us  as 
His  thoughts  and  ideas.  These  He  is  con- 
^antly  sending  into  our  mentalities.  By 
holding  them  and  knowing  whence  they 
come,  they  become  externalized  in  conscious 
experience  as  the  things  we  need  to  prop- 
erly express  God.  That  is,  as  all  that  we 
need  to  perform  our  part  in  the  infinite  ex- 
pression of  Mind. 

But  if  consciousness  is  already  full  of  wrong 
thoughts  and  ideas,  the  thoughts  and  ideas 
which  God  sends  us  cannot  find  entrance 
until  these  are  displaced.  When  this  is 
done,  the  thoughts  of  infinite  Mind  will  flow 
into  consciousness,  and  ultimately  become 
externalized  there  as  abundance,  peace,  joy, 
freedom,  dominion,  and  all  good. 

This  is  the  '' secret"  of  Jesus.  It  is  likewise 
the  secret  of  Chri^ian  Science.  It  is  seeking  fir^ 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  Kingdom  of  Righteous- 

317 


THE  DIARY  OF 

ness,  right  thinking  based  upon  Truth.  Barren- 
ness of  experience  is  thus  shown  to  be  only 
meagerness  of  receptivity,  for  all  things  are 
already  ours,  and  we  have  only  to  avail  ourselves 
of  this  great  fact,  and  conform  our  ways  of  think- 
ing to  the  commands  of  Jesus,  in  order  ultimately 
to  empty  the  consciousness  of  all  false  thoughts 
and  arguments  of  error,  and  all  claims  of  any- 
thing unlike  or  opposed  to  God.  We  are  in  no 
way  dependent  upon  man-made  laws  or  man-made 
methods.  God  of  very  necessity  must  have  met 
already  every  one  of  our  needs.  It  is  for  us  to 
stand  and  know  it. 

Men  do  not  achieve  more  because  their  faith 
does  not  permit  them  to  attempt  more.  They 
limit  themselves,  and  ^ill  worship  at  the  shrine  of 
the  Roman  God  Terminus.  They  do  not  really 
lack  faith,  but  their  faith  in  evil  is  generally  far 
greater  than  in  Good.  They  will  have  to  get  their 
faith  on  the  right  side,  the  side  ivith  God,  if  they 
would  improve  their  Status.  Faith  mu§t  become 
understanding,  and  confidence  must  develop  re- 
ceptivity. We  always  receive  as  much  of  the 
Chri^  Principle  as  we  are  ready  for.  If,  althougli 
we  know  something  of  infinite  Truth,  our  faith  is 
sl^ill  in  evil,  our  problems  will  not  be  solved,  nor 
our  diseases  healed.  To  continue  speaking  evil, 
to  continue  voicing  and  reiterating  falsities,  to 
maintain  an  attitude  of  anticipating  evil,  and  gen- 
erally expe6ling  it,  rather  than  good,  will  result 
in  such  expe6tations  being  realized.  Mrs.  Eddy 
has  said,  ''When  we  come  to  have  more  faith  in 
318 


JEA]^    EVARTS 

the  truth  of  being  thau  we  have  in  error,  more 
faith  in  Spirit  than  in  matter,  more  faith  in  living 
than  in  djdug,  more  faith  in  God  than  in  man,  then 
no  material  suppositions  can  prevent  us  from 
healing  the  sick  and  de^roying  error."  (Science 
and  Health,  page  368.)  And  she  has  shown  us 
how  to  attain  this  faith. 

Men  mu§t  learn  to  be  about  their  Father's 
business,  the  business  of  reflecting  Him,  rather 
than  the  business  of  gratifying  material  desires 
and  personal  ambitions.  They  mu^  learn  that  all 
the  wealth  there  is  that  has  real  and  permanent 
value  is  within.  Such  wealth  is  not  swept  away 
by  panics,  by  accidents,  fire,  or  flood,  nor  can  it 
be  Stolen  from  those  possessing  it.  Such  wealth 
constitutes  a  real  investment,  the  mo^  profitable 
investment  that  was  ever  offered  to  mankind,  for 
it  is  an  inve^ment  in  Truth  itself.  All  business 
is  in  Mind,  and  we  shall  have  to  learn  to  refle6t  it. 
There  is  nothing  that  can  keep  a  man  tied  hand 
and  foot,  helpless,  fearing,  poor,  and  sickly,  but 
his  own  false,  material  thinking.  The  mesmeric 
thought  that  holds  him  is  his  own.  AMiile  looking 
at  it  he  can  see  nothing  else.  He  is  then  as  help- 
less and  as  limited  as  the  deer,  whose  liberty  may 
be  restrained  by  enclosing  it  in  a  corral  of  but  a 
single  wire.  The  deer  sees  the  wire,  and  is  as 
effectually  imprisoned  as  if  shut  up  within  stone 
w'alls.  It  might  leap  over  the  ware,  or  crawl  be- 
neath it;  but  it  yields  to  the  sense  of  limitatioi? 
which  the  single  wire  engenders,  and  remains  a 
helpless  prisoner.    This  illustrates  the  psycholog- 

319 


THE  DIARY  OF 

ical  fa6l  that  the  mind  sees  but  one  thought  at  a 
time,  regardless  of  the  thoughts  that  may  be  sup- 
posed to  be  held  within  the  mentality.  If  it  looks 
con^antly  at  the  thought  of  limitation,  it  fails  to 
see  the  thoughts  of  abundance  that  are  ever- 
present,  and  that  may  be  held  before  the  mental 
gaze  as  readily  as  their  opposites.  A  tiny  object 
held  close  to  the  eye  will  blot  out  the  beauty  and 
glory  of  the  entire  world.  So  an  insignificant  and 
powerless  thought  of  limitation,  held  close  to  the 
mental  vision,  will  hide  the  infinite  bounty  of  God 
from  our  impoverished  minds.  Poverty  is  a  false 
sense  of  separation  from  God,  infinite  Good. 
Financial  limitation  is  the  externalization  of  a  lie. 
And  a  lie  is  always  of  human  origin.  God's  chil- 
dren are  His  ideas,  and  are  embraced  in  His 
thought  and  held  within  Himself,  infinite  Mind. 
How,  then,  can  there  be  any  separation  from 
Good?  The  separation  is  only  in  the  false  thought 
itself. 

If  we  seek  the  externalization  of  Good  within 
consciousness,  we  mu^  firSl  know  that  Good  is 
infinite,  and  that  there  is  no  reality  whatever  in 
that  which  is  called  evil.  A  knowledge  of  this 
great  fa6l  cannot  but  make  us  deeply  grateful, 
and  thus  gratitude  becomes  one  of  the  fir§l  requi- 
sites to  success  in  overcoming  the  false  sense  of 
poverty,  for  it  indicates  our  state  of  mind.  Pov- 
erty is  a  part  of  the  so-called  te^imony  of  the 
physical  senses,  and  such  te^imony  is  only  the 
various  beliefs  that  obtain  in  the  human  mental- 
ity.   God,  infinite  Mind,  alone  can  give  true  teSti- 

320 


JEAN    EVARTS 

mony  regarding  us.  We  know  wliat  that  testimony 
is,  for  we  know  tliat  He  spates  us  in  terms  of  per- 
fection, as  children  of  infinite  Love,  supplied  with 
all  that  is  needful.  Men  believe  that  business  is 
a  warfare,  and  such  they  make  it.  They  consider 
it  a  necessary  ^rife  for  even  the  very  means  of 
su^aining  existence.  They  say  that  only  the 
fitted  survive  this  terrible  druggie,  and  that  the 
fitted  are  those  who  manifesl  the  greater  will- 
power, combined  w^th  business  shrewdness,  sagac- 
ity, and  cunning.  Honesty  and  strength  of  char- 
after  do  not  figure  as  assets  in  this  warfare.  The 
philosophy  of  the  business  world  is  the  philosophy 
of  greed,  and  to  be  successful,  as  recently  (stated 
by  an  eminent  financier,  one  must  have  more 
brains  than  heart. 

But,  if  God  is  Love,  and  if  He  has  already 
given  to  all  men  all  that  they  need,  why  should 
there  be  any  struggle,  or  why  should  there  be  any 
lack?  Again,  it  is  the  result  of  mortal  greed,  self- 
ishness, fear,  avarice,  hatred,  and  meagerness  of 
receptivit}'.  Poverty  is  a  blight  upon  our  civiliza- 
tion. As  indicators  of  y)rogress,  the  workhouse 
and  bureau  of  charity  sland  on  the  same  plane  as 
the  hospital.  Even  according  to  mortal  ways  of 
thinking,  this  earth  is  big  enough  and  rich  enough 
to  supply,  not  only  the  necessities  of  life  to  every 
mortal  attached  to  it,  but  even  the  luxuries.  There 
is  more  than  enough  to  go  round,  much  more,  for 
the  earth  symbolizes,  in  a  way,  God's  infinite  sup- 
ply. The  needless  blight  of  poverty  could  be 
wiped  out  so  easily,  if  men    only    cared,    really 

321 


THE  DIARY  OF 

cared,  to  make  the  attempt  in  the  right  way.  But, 
a6hiated  by  mortal  thought,  they  accumulate, 
hoard,  ^rive,  and  slay  in  the  world's  business, 
only  to  find  at  the  end  of  it  all  that  they  have  made 
terrible  mi^akes  and  have  labored  for  that  which 
is  not  meat — only  to  realize  that  they  have  paid 
an  awful  price  for  the  dubious  privilege  of  serving 
Mammon. 

Why  not  set  about  correcting  these  mistakes? 
Why  not  begin  to  set  in  a6lion  those  forces  that 
will  bring  in  an  era  of  harmony  and  prosperity 
for  all  mankind,  in^ead  of  vainly  trying  to  be- 
lieve that  such  a  ^ate  of  bliss  is  attainable  only 
after  death?  Love  has  supplied  a  sure  way  of 
meeting  all  of  life's  difficulties,  and  of  blessing  all 
mankind  far  beyond  their  moB  extravagant 
dreams  of  happiness.  Men  must,  sooner  or  later, 
be  awakened  out  of  their  mesmeric  beliefs.  Their 
petty  worldly  ambitions,  their  lust  and  greed, 
their  selfishness,  and  their  fierce  strife  for  those 
things  which,  once  obtained,  do  not  satisfy,  mu§t 
be  abandoned  and  put  out  of  consciousness,  if  the 
things  that  are  really  worth  while  are  to  appear. 
True  love  is  never  satisfied  with  earthly  things. 
True  wealth  is  spiritual  consciousness,  and  can  be 
obtained  by  everybody,  but  only  through  following 
the  method  which  Jesus  gave  to  the  world  so  many 
centuries  ago. 

When  facing  the  lie  of  poverty  we  must  ''be 
not  afraid."  We  muSl  pay  no  heed  to  arguments 
of  self-limitation,  for  these  are  but  limitation  of 
belief  in  God's  ability  and  willingness  to  help  us. 

322 


JEAN   EVARTS 

We  mu^  know  that  the  lie  of  poverty  originated 
in  the  human  consciousness,  in  human  thought, 
and  that  we  can  de^roy  its  pernicious  a6tivity  by 
knowing  the  Truth  and  resisting  it  on  that  basis. 
Once  de^royed  in  thouglit,  a  correspondingly 
changed  manifestation  will  result.  Bnt  the  spirit- 
ual must  first  he  looked  after.  The  material  will 
then  follow  of  itself,  for  the  essentially  counter- 
feit nature  of  mortal  mind  forces  it  to  copy  the 
pattern  constantly  held  before  it.. 

It  is  God's  business  to  care  for  you,  to  feed, 
clothe,  and  shelter  you.  He  does  not  have  to  be 
reminded  of  His  duty.  Do  not  interfere  in  His 
work,  and  do  not  allow  any  sense  of  Self  and 
Self's  assumed  needs  to  get  in  the  way.  Be  ex- 
pe<5lant  of  Good,  for  God  is  that  *' which  was,  and 
which  is  to  come."  If  He  is  that  which  is  to  come, 
why  should  we  anticipate  the  coming  of  evil.  His 
opposite?  Mrs.  Eddy,  from  a  wisdom  proven  by 
experience,  has  ^ated  a  rule  for  conduct  which 
should  be  graven  deep  on  the  thought  of  every 
loyal  seeker  after  God:  *'Be  wholly  absorbed  in 
the  work  of  gaining  daily  more  understanding  of 
God.  Then  personal  ambition,  envy,  desire  to  be 
in  this  or  that  place,  cannot  use  you.  Personal 
ambition  has  no  place  in  a  Christian's  thought  or 
life.  He  is  wholly  occupied  in  the  loving,  humble 
purpose  to  do  good,  to  be  good,  and  to  prove  that 
good  is  all  that  can  govern  thought,  action,  con- 
dition, or  being."  Keep  your  thought  focused 
upon  the  continual  coming  of  Good,  on  the  beauties 
and  wonders  of  God's  infinite  goodness  that  are 

323 


THE  DIARY  OF 

flowing  incessantly  into  your  mentality ;  hold  con- 
stantly before  your  mental  gaze  the  reality  of  Man 
as  God's  greate^  and  grandest  idea;  then,  as  time 
glides  on,  you  will  find  yourself  becoming  trans- 
formed into  that  on  which  your  thought  is  fixed. 
In  all  his  many  difficulties,  Moses  was  able  to  say, 
"But  our  eyes  are  upon  Thee."  And  so  "he  en- 
dured as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible."  Take  up 
your  cross  and  go  willingly,  not  with  the  morbid, 
material  thought  that  mortals  reflect  to  one  an- 
other, but  with  your  mind  illumined  by  the  Light 
of  Truth.  Jesus  said  of  the  Chrit^t  Principle,  "Lo, 
I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world."  Love  is  with  you  all  the  way  and  in  all 
ways.  You  are  never  dependent  upon  any  sense 
of  human  aid.  Your  Father  says,  "My  grace  shall 
be  sufficient  for  you."  And  so  you  will  prove  it 
to  be. 


Thus  am  I  to  be  launched  upon  life's  high  sea 
once  more.  But  I  have  thought  it  all  out  tonight, 
and  I  know  that  my  friend  has  advised  me  wisely. 
With  joy  and  thanksgiving  I  have  already  begun 
my  work,  the  task  of  proving  God's  omnipotence, 
and  reflecting  it  to  my  fellow  beings.  It  is  of  little 
moment  what  my  liands  may  lind  to  do,  for  I  am 
sure  that  this  dear  friend  who  lias  been  unfolding 
the  message  of  Jesus  to  me  during  these  past  few 
days,  will  walk  with  me,  as  guide  and  counsellor, 
until  my  rightful  place  has  been  externalized.  And 

224 


JEAN   EVARTS 

that  place — I  have  tried  so  hard  not  to  outline — 
and  yet,  if  it  could  be — by  his  side. 

But  such  thoughts  liave  no  place  here,  for  I 
know  they  are  human,  and  he  has  told  me  so  often 
that  speculation  is  not  based  on  Truth.  And 
tonight,  following  in  the  way  he  has  pointed  out, 
I  am  driving  to  lay  every  desire  upon  the  altar  of 
Righteousness,  asking  only  that  infinite  Wisdom 
may  guide  me. 


325 


MAY  28TH 


MAY  28TH 

S  I  write  these  words  tonight  I  am 
trying  to  colle6t  my  scattered 
thoughts  and  make  myself  believe 
that  the  pa^  few  days  have  not 
been  a  dream,  from  which  I  shall 
awake  to  see  myself  ^ill  in  the 
lopeless  condition  in  which  he  found  me.  Today 
came  as  a  sudden  climax  to  the  whole  wonderful 
experience ;  and  tonight  there  is  such  a  conflict  of 
emotions  within  me,  such  a  mingling  of  happiness 
and  fear,  of  glad  surprise  and,  withal,  chagrin 
that  I  should  have  been  so  weak,  that  my  wits 
appear  to  be  scattered  beyond  hope  of  recovery, 
and  I  know  I  am  writing  as  disconne6ledly  as  I 
am  thinking. 

From  the  first  day  I  have  felt  as  if  I  had 
always  known  him.  There  was  something  in  his 
expression,  in  his  manner,  and  even  in  his  voice, 
that  seemed  familiar.  I  felt  as  if  there  was  a 
bond  between  us  that  reached  far  back  to  some 
experience  that  we  had  shared  together  in  the  for- 
gotten pa^.  Many  times  I  had  been  on  the  point 
of  asking  him  to  tell  me  about  himself;  but  he  was 
always  so  absorbed  in  his  message,  and  in  his 
thought  of  helping  me,  that  there  appeared  no 
opportunity  to  gratify  what  I  felt  he  would  regard 
as  idle  curiosity. 

It  came  about  so  unexpectedly  that  my  recol- 
le6tion  of  the  details  is  much  confused.  After  he 
had  sat  down  beside  me  this  morning,  he  remained 
quiet  for  a  long  time,  looking  out  over  the  valley, 
while  I  waited  for  him  to  continue  the  message 

329 


THE  DIARY  OF 

that  he  has  been  unfolding.  I  wanted  to  tell  him 
how  much  I  had  read  in  my  new  book  the  night 
before,  and  how  wonderful  it  all  seemed  to  me; 
but  something  held  my  words  back,  something  un- 
defined, like  a  vague  apprehension  of  unpleasant 
tidings. 

Then  he  spoke.  He  told  me  that  his  work  for 
me  was  finished,  that  the  message  had  been  given, 
and  that  I  was  now  able  to  do  my  own  work  in- 
dependently. He  said  that  I  had  some  under- 
standing of  the  great  Principle  of  Being,  and  that 
I  had  seen  some  proof  of  its  powder  to  cast  out 
error  from  the  human  consciousness.  The  book  he 
had  given  me  would  be  my  guide  henceforth,  and 
my  progress  would  depend  upon  my  fidelity  to  its 
teachings. 

''You  have  all  that  you  need  to  enable  you  to 
work  out  your  salvation,"  he  said,  ''and,  as  I  told 
you  some  time  ago,  such  work  must  be  individual. 
Jesus  has  shown  us  the  way,  but  he  has  not  done 
our  work  for  us.  Believing  him  to  be  the  Son  of 
God,  faith  in  his  goodness  and  power,  and  out- 
ward conformity  to  the  letter  of  his  teachings,  will 
do  no  more  for  you  than  it  has  done  for  human- 
ity since  he  left  the  world.  Faith  without  works 
is  dead.  It  is  work  that  proves  the  Principle  and 
demonstrates  a  correal  understanding  of  it.  Real 
progress  results  from  a6tually  doing  the  works  he 
did,  casting  out  sin,  healing  the  sick,  and  raising 
the  dead.  Ceremonial,  ritualism,  creeds,  and 
human  opinions  delivered  in  flowery  rhetoric  from 
the  pulpits  of  costly  churches,  will  never  heal  the 

3S0 


JEAN    EVARTS 

world's  sickness,  nor  wipe  away  its  tears.  Men 
have  preached  and  expounded  for  centuries,  but 
their  faith — understanding — has  been  dead.  Chris- 
tian Science  has  come  to  rekindle  the  flame  of 
under^anding,  that  it  may  shine  into  the  human 
mentality  and  light  the  way  for  the  entrance  of 
Truth." 

While  he  spoke,  his  eyes  shone  with  the  light 
of  perfe6t  confidence  in  that  which  he  was  voicing. 
But  when  he  had  finished,  and  turned  to  look  at 
me,  the  light  seemed  to  fade,  and  I  thought  a 
shadow  clouded  the  brightness  of  his  face. 

Then  he  added  in  a  low  voice, ' '  I  have  planned 
to  go  this  afternoon. ' ' 

I  know  not  why  the  thought  of  separation  from 
him  had  never  impressed  itself  upon  me  before. 
It  seemed  so  natural  that  I  should  be  with  him, 
and  I  seemed  to  have  known  him  so  long,  that  I 
had  insensibly  grown  to  feel  that  he  had  always 
occupied  a  place  in  my  life,  that  he  was  a  part  of 
it,  and  that  it  was  his  very  presence  in  it  that 
made  my  life  complete. 

For  a  moment  I  was  dazed.  Then  there  swept 
over  me  a  flood  of  emotions  that  drowned  my  sen- 
sibilities, and  in  an  instant  paralyzed  all  rational 
thought.  An  overwhelming  realization  of  what  he 
had  done  for  me,  of  my  dependence  upon  him,  and, 
above  all,  of  that  growing  affe6lion — an  affection 
that  I  had  hardly  dared  to  own,  that  I  had  thought 
to  check,  and  yet  had  secretly  clung  to  as  my 
heart's  dearest  possession,  and  which  now,  Simu- 
lated by  fear  of  separation,  had  suddenly  assumed 

331 


THE  DIARY  OF 

gigantic  proportions — took  complete  possession 
of  me,  and  found  expression  in  a  confusion  of  pro- 
test and  remoniitrance  that  welled  to  my  lips.  I 
cannot  recall  now  what  I  said  to  him  in  the  des- 
peration of  weakness.  But  I  am  sure  I  mu^t  have 
revealed  much  of  my  thought  of  him  that  I  had 
tried  so  hard  before  to  keep  hidden — I  must  have 
told  him  of  my  utter  loneliness,  and  of  my  feeling 
of  dependence  upon  him  as  my  only  friend — I 
must  have  poured  out  my  ^ricken  soul  before  him 
— until  at  last  the  tears  mercifully  came  and 
stopped  my  wild  words. 

Then,  through  the  storm  that  raged  within,  I 
heard  his  voice,  and  he  was  speaking  my  name, 
''Jean." 

It  was  not  the  word  itself,  but  the  authority  of 
some  knowledge  hidden  from  me  and  implied  in 
it,  that  stilled  the  temped  and  brought  again  the 
calm.  I  looked  up  at  him  through  my  tears, 
vaguely  wondering. 

Then  he  laid  his  hand  gently  on  mine.  "You 
are  asking  why  I  called  you  by  your  name,"  he 
said,  and  his  face  was  bright  with  that  same  won- 
derful smile  of  tenderness,  as  if  he  read  my 
thought  and  felt  compassion  for  such  weakness. 

' '  Surely  I  still  have  the  right  to  call  you  Jean, ' ' 
he  continued,  "for  I  see  in  you  the  same  impulsive 
girl  who  used  to  run  away  from  school  with  me  to 
gather  flowers  on  the  green  hillsides  of  our  New 
England  home — the  same  quick,  responsive  girl, 
who  never  would  let  me  be  her  champion,  but 
whose  friendship  I  treasured  as  one  of  my  deare^ 

332 


JEAN    EVARTS 

possessions  in  those  distant,  happy  days,  when  we 
took  no  anxious  thought  for  the  morrow." 

Slowly  the  light  dawned  upon  my  clouded 
vision,  and  I  began  to  see  that  vague  something 
which  had  seemed  to  exist  between  us,  leading 
back  to  the  days  of  childhood.  Then,  suddenly, 
the  truth  came  to  me,  and  his  name  sprang  to  my 
lips — the  name  I  had  seen  in  my  sixer's  letters 
and  upon  the  checks  I  had  received  from  her.  I 
turned  and  ^ared  at  him  in  amazement,  for  the 
magnitude  of  th«  revelation  was  such  that  my 
mind,  already  sorely  tried,  could  scarcely  grasp  it. 

But  as  in  the  fir§l  days  of  our  association  here 
he  had  shown  himself  master  of  that  mental  con- 
dition which  was  hurrying  me  to  the  manifesta- 
tion of  death,  so  now  he  brought  order  out  of  my 
confused  thought,  and  revealed  that  wonderful 
naturalness  of  condu6l  which  is  the  reflection  of 
God's  activity,  the  a<5tivity  of  infinite  Principle, 
whose  motive  is  love  to  all  mankind. 

' '  I  am  going  to  tell  you  ju§t  enough  about  my- 
self, ' '  he  added,  after  admitting  his  identity,  * '  to 
explain  why  I  came  to  you  in  your  hour  of  need. 
To  do  so  I  must  go  back  in  thought  almo^  to  the 
days  when  I  carried  your  books  to  school,  or  felt 
a  sense  of  deep  resentment  when  you  would  not 
permit  me  to  whip  some  boy  who  teased  you. 
Many  years  have  passed  since  then,  and  they  have 
brought  me  a  varied  experience ;  yet  I  can  see  now 
that  the  experience  has  all  been  such  as  to  bend 
my  thought  in  but  one  direction,  and  to  finally 
prepare  me,  through  trials,  disappointments,  and 

333 


THE  DIARY  OF 

suffering,  for  the  reception  of  that  Truth  which 
has  become  the  motif  of  my  life. 

After  leaving  our  home  town,  I  entered  an 
eastern  University.  In  the  matter  of  education  I 
might  be  considered  very  fortunate,  for  I  spent 
many  years  in  college  and  received  diplojiias  from 
several  institutions  of  learning.  As  for  my  relig- 
ious education,  I  had  allowed  myself  to  become  a 
member  of  an  orthodox  church  when  a  mere  boy. 
But  my  heart  was  never  fully  enlii§ted,  and  as  I 
grew  older  I  found  that  I  could  not  conscientiously 
hold  to  orthodox  views.  What  sympathy  I  had 
left  for  the  creed  to  which  my  name  was  sub- 
scribed entirely  evaporated  into  the  highly  critical 
and  worldly  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  Uni- 
versity; and  when  I  finally  left  the  "sacred  pre- 
cincts ' '  of  learning,  I  did  so  as  an  agnostic,  deeply 
versed  in  human  philosophies,  and  much  im- 
pressed with  the  purely  literary  value  of  the  Bible. 

Then  followed  a  business  experience  in  which 
I  willingly  assumed  my  part  in  the  tragedy  of  im- 
proving the  ^atus  of  a  human  mind  at  the  ex- 
pense of  its  fellows.  I  was  filled  with  ambition  to 
succeed,  and  was  quite  ready  to  accept  the  world's 
established  code  for  acquiring  both  fame  and 
wealth. 

O  the  sadness  of  that  experience !  The  empti- 
ness  of  my  labor  for  that  which  was  not  meat !  I 
awoke  to  see  all  about  me  the  massing  of  material 
riches  at  the  awful  coSt  of  manhood,  and  the  sale 
of  honor  for  a  few  pieces  of  silver,  a  pitiful  bar- 
gain!   Everywhere  I  saw  the  sacrifice  of  friend- 

334 


JEAN    EVAETS 

ships  for  gold  to  consume  on  human  luSts ;  every- 
where the  mad  ^rife  for  preferment  in  mortal 
thought,  the  vain  race  for  "who  shall  be  greater " 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  dying !  In  every  walk  of  life 
I  found  the  worship  of  Mammon,  the  cheapening 
of  real  worth,  and  the  toadying  of  the  sycophants 
of  show  and  glitter.  The  air  was  filled  with  ma- 
terial thinking,  cry^allizing  into  coarse  living. 
On  all  sides  I  met  the  pitiable  pretensions  to 
human  power  of  the  self-made  and  the  newly  rich ; 
the  inflated  boastings  of  the  bloated  human  mind ; 
the  blackness  of  ignorance;  the  lamentable  weak- 
ness of  worldly  learning ;  and  the  tragedy  of  mor- 
tals eking  out  their  few  sad,  fleeting  years  of  sin, 
disease,  misery  and  worthlessness,  even  while 
vainly  boasting  that  they  were  alive !  No  wonder 
Jesus  wept  when  he  saw  what  kind  of  soil  the 
world  offered  for  the  truth  he  came  to  plant ! 

Often  I  thought  to  flee  from  it  all,  as  Thoreau 
did,  and  with  a  few  acres  and  a  humble  cottage, 
live  apart  from  the  world's  confli(5t  and  give  the 
remaining  years  of  my  life  to  ''plain  living  and 
high  thinking."  Many  times  I  prayed  that  the 
great  Being,  which  I  felt  mu^  be  behind  all  this 
material  phenomena,  w^ould  show  me  what  was 
worth  while,  and  I  would  promise  to  follow  the 
leading,  even  though  to  the  human  mind  I  should 
become  the  lowliest  menial. 

Mrs.  Eddy  has  said  that  desire  is  prayer,  and 
that  all  true  prayer  is  answ^ered.  All  the  human 
desires  that  ever  birred  my  thought  at  last  melted 
in  the  fire  of  trials  and  suffering  into  the  one  true 

335 


THE  DIARY  OF 

desire  to  know  God,  and  Him  only.  That  was  my 
fir^  real  prayer — and  it  was  answered.  As  in 
your  hour  of  need  Truth  came  to  you,  so  it  found 
me,  baffled,  disappointed,  discouraged,  and  hope- 
less. What  it  did  for  you,  it  likewise  did  for  me. 
I  arose  restored,  and  from  death  I  awoke  to  know 
that  Life  is  infinite. 

Since  then  I  have  learned  what  is  really  worth 
while,  and  my  life  has  been  one  of  devotion  to 
'^my  Father's  business."  Daily  I  have  been  about 
the  business  of  acquiring  a  better  understanding 
of  Him,  that  I  might  become  a  channel  through 
which  that  knowledge  should  be  brought  to  my 
fellow  men.  With  what  understanding  I  had  re- 
ceived from  studying  the  book  which  I  have  given 
you,  I  entered  the  field  that  Jesus  so  long  ago 
pointed  out  as  white  all  about  us,  and  now  I  am 
working  as  a  practitioner  in  the  great  city  of  San 
Francisco. 

But  in  all  these  years  I  never  forgot  you ;  and 
when,  a  few  weeks  ago,  I  learned  from  your  si^er 
that  you  were  in  need  of  help,  I  w^rote  her  to  send 
you  at  once  to  California.  I  had  already  arranged 
to  speud  a  few  days  in  these  hills,  and  here  I  felt 
that  you  should  be  brought — here  where  the 
beauty  and  glory  of  the  infinite  Father  is  mani- 
fe^ed  so  clearly  in  the  brilliant  sunlight,  the  soft 
winds,  and  the  profusion  of  flowers  and  birds,  the 
murmur  of  streams,  and  the  majesty  of  the  snow- 
capped mountains.  Here  you  have  found  Him, 
and  finding  Him,  have  entered  upon  a  knowledge 
of  Life  eternal." 

336 


JEAN    EVAETS 

Before  he  had  finished  I  was  pressing  his  hand 
to  my  lips  and  covering  it  with  my  fa^f ailing 
tears. 

''Forgive  me,"  I  faltered,  ''forgive  the  weak- 
ness and  ingratitude  which  my  selfish  desires  have 
expressed.  Your  work  for  me  is  finished — and 
you  muift  go.    But — you — take — " 

Again  I  checked  myself.  Then,  with  a  sudden 
wild  impulse,  I  cried,  "Leave  me  now!  Leave  me 
to  work  it  all  out  alone !  Go,  and  may  that  Father, 
whom  you  refle6t  so  clearly,  crown  your  life  and 
work  with  richest  blessings!" 

I  ^started  to  rise ;  but  he  detained  me. 

"FirSt,"  he  said,  taking  my  hand,  "I  want  to 
tell  you  of  a  problem,  and  ask  you  to  help  me  solve 
it.  You  will  learn  in  your  new  work  never  to  re- 
fuse an  appeal  for  help,"  he  added,  smiling,  for 
he  read  my  astonishment  at  the  thought  of  asking 
me  to  help  him. 

' '  I  would  not  refuse  to  do  anything  that  lay  in 
my  power,"  I  replied.  "But  I  have  so  little  faith 
in  my  ability — " 

"You  are  not  asked  to  have  faith  in  your  own 
ability,"  he  interrupted.  "Remember,  always, 
that  the  Master  said  of  himself  he  could  do  noth- 
ing. It  is  the  Truth,  God,  within  the  human  con- 
sciousness that  does  the  w^ork.  Your  part  is  to 
know  the  Truth." 

"I  do  know,  and  I  will  remember,"  I  replied, 
eagerly.  "And  I  will  try  to  help  you.  What  is 
your  problem?" 

"You,"  he  answered  quickly. 

337 


THE  DIARY  OF 

I  looked  up  into  his  face,  but  the  smile  was 
gone. 

^'But — I  do  not  underhand,"  I  murmured, 
wonderingly,  trying  to  read  the  answer  in  his  eyes. 

And  then,  while  my  heart  beat  rapidly  with  an 
excitation  of  mingled  joy  and  fear,  he  told  me 
what  I  had  never  dared  to  hope  could  be  more 
than  a  day-dream  of  my  own  fancy.  It  was  the 
old,  familiar  i^tory,  but  told  in  a  new  way;  and  it 
seemed  to  me  the  most  beautiful  expression  of  un- 
selfish love  that  was  ever  sent  forth  to  meet  the 
needs  of  a  yearning  heart. 

"To  explain  is  to  repeat  an  oft-told  i^tory,"  he 
said,  ''and  one  that  I  had  not  thought  to  tell  you, 
until  I  caught  in  your  voice  and  words  a  few 
moments  ago  the  answer  to  a  jjerplexing  question 
that  has  come  into  my  mind  so  insistently  during 
these  few  days,  .lean,  I  have  known  you  and  fol- 
lowed you  in  thought  from  the  time  we  were  play- 
mates together  until  the  day  I  again  saw  you, 
leaning  over  this  ledge — that  day  when  I  hurried 
to  lift  you  up  and  realize  for  you  that  death  is  not 
the  ma^er  of  Life.  Even  as  a  boy,  there  was 
constantly  with  me  the  desire  to  claim  you  some 
day;  but  it  was  to  be  only  after  I  liad  amassed  a 
fortune,  and  written  my  name  large  upon  tlie 
scroll  of  success.  How  I  laugh  now  at  those 
youthful  ambitions ! 

But  there  was  one  ambition  that  endured.  Per- 
haps it  is  only  human,  like  the  others — but  that 
constitutes  my  problem.  Each  of  us  has  again 
come  into  the    other's  life.     Shall    we    continue 

338 


JEAN    EVARTS 

there?  Is  it  right  and  beSl  that  our  paths  should 
join,  and  that  we  should  walk  through  the  re- 
mainder of  this  life  together? 

I  know  that  marriage  is  a  serious  problem, 
even  though  it  is  seldom  taken  up  as  such.  And  I 
fully  agree  with  Mrs.  Eddy,  that  unless  it  is  a 
^ep  in  the  line  of  progress  it  should  not  be  en- 
tered into.  But  it  is  an  institution  that  cannot  be 
removed  from  human  experience  now — and  it  is 
one  that  can  be  made  an  in^rument  of  the  great- 
er good. 

Jean,  there  has  been  with  me  since  boyhood  a 
sense  of  need,  a  need  that  you  can  meet,  to  fill  out 
this  experience  called  life,  and  to  join  with  me  in 
the  great  work  of  manifesting  the  infinite  Father 
who  is  Love,  and  refle6ting  Him  to  our  fellow  men. 
Will  you  take  up  with  me  this  problem :  wiiether 
it  is  right  and  best  for  us,  and  for  all  within  the 
radius  of  our  thought,  that  our  lives  sliould  unite, 
and  that  we  should  live  and  work  together?  Will 
you  join  me  in  laying  all  human  desires  upon  the 
altar  of  Love,  and  ask  that  we  may  be  led  to  see 
the  way  clearly!  Mrs.  Eddy  has  said,  and  proved, 
that  'working  and  praying  with  true  motives,  your 
Father  will  open  the  way.'  This  is  my  problem; 
will  you  share  it  with  me  ! ' ' 

The  sun  Stood  high  above  us,  and  the  valley 
was  full  of  molten  gold.  The  breath  of  violets  and 
wild  roses  kissed  my  cheeks,  and  the  love  song  of 
the  meadow  lark  floated  on  the  soft  air. 

I  clasped  his  hand  in  answer,  for,  though  my 
heart  was  bursting,  I  could  not  speak. 

339 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 

''I  underhand,"  lie  said,  softly.  "And  now  I 
am  going  to  leave  you.  Not  to  take  the  afternoon 
train,  as  I  had  planned, ' '  he  added  hazily,  for  he 
muSl  have  seen  the  look  of  appeal  in  my  eyes.  "I 
shall  postpone  that.  But  this  has  been  a  day  of 
trying  experience  for  you,  and  I  know  it  is  besl 
that  you  should  be  alone." 

Then  he  pressed  my  hand  to  his  lips  and 
left  me. 


340 


EPILOGUE 


EPILOGUE 

HEN  I  closed  this  short  diary, 
nearly  five  years  ago,  I  had  no 
thought  of  ever  adding  to  its 
record  of  what  seem  to  me  the 
nioift  wonderful  days  of  my  life. 
The  history  of  Truth's  appearing 
in  my  darkened  consciousness  has  been  to  me,  like 
the  Scriptures  themselves,  too  holy  to  be  mingled 
with  the  records  of  a  mortal  exiiftence,  and  I  had 
intended  always  to  keep  it  apart.  The  ^ory  of 
the  coming  of  the  one  who  brought  me  the  ''glad 
tidings"  was  too  beautiful  and  sacred  to  be  pro- 
faned by  any  further  details  of  human  experience. 
But  today  the  spring  house-cleaning  again 
brought  this  little  record  to  light.  With  a  feeling 
akin  to  reverence  I  took  it  from  the  shelf,  to  turn 
once  more  its  pages  and  call  again  to  memory 
those  radiant  days  when,  in  the  matchless  glory  of 
that  distant  springtime,  in  such  a  setting  as  only 
Nature  herself  can  frame  in  these  magic  hills, 
there  was  unfolded  to  me  a  vista  of  that  which  was 
to  come.  And  as  I  i-ead,  I  felt  that  there  was  a 
word  of  gratitude  to  be  added  before  the  little 
volume  could  be  complete. 

Gratitude  for  Life,  Truth,  and  Love !  My  life 
has  become  a  song  of  deep  thanksgiving,  a  pean 
of  praise  to  that  dear  Father  who  Wretched  forth 
His  hand  and  lifted  me  from  the  shadow  of  the 
grave ! 

As  I  write,  sitting  in  the  shade  of  a  dense 
crimson  rambler  that  seems  almo^  humanly  in- 
telligent in  its  efforts  to  completely  hide  our  little 

243 


THE  DIARY  OF 

bungalow,  my  small  son  is  climbing  upon  my  chair 
and  begging  me  to  read  to  him  from  what  he 
thinks  mu^  be  a  ^ory  book.  A  ^ory  book,  indeed, 
that  he  shall  some  day  treasure  as  I  do  now ! 

Gratitude!  0  Father,  the  innocent  chatter  of 
this  little  fellow,  who  has  wrapped  himself  about 
my  heart,  is  like  a  symphony  from  Heaven's 
choir! 

Gratitude !  Every  bird  that  heralds  the  rising 
sun  echoes  my  song  of  thanksgiving !  0  that  men 
could  know,  not  what  God  will  do  for  man,  but 
what  He  has  already  done  for  him !  How  quickly 
the  deserts  would  bloom,  and  how  the  hills  would 
clap  their  hands,  and  the  stars  sing  together 
for  joy! 

As  I  look  up  from  my  writing,  the  garden  is 
aflame  with  color.  The  great  trees  that  meet  and 
twine  their  arms  together  far  above  our  little 
home  are  gently  swaying  in  the  perfumed  breeze 
that  has  crept  down  from  the  hill  tops  and  is 
slowly  drifting  out  to  sea.  Here  and  there  I  see 
it  fill  a  white  sail,  or  bend  the  ma§t  of  some  fishing 
smack  that  floats  lazily  on  the  glassy  surface  of 
the  bay  far  below. 

In  the  midst  of  this  beauty  and  harmony,  the 
thought  comes  to  me,  what  if  the  Truth  brought 
to  me  by  that  dear  friend,  who  daily  becomes 
nearer  and  dearer,  should  find  entrance  into  every 
human  consciousness?  What  if  the  w'hole  world, 
in^ead  of  leaning  on  erring,  human  opinions  and 
speculation,  should  come  into  a  knowledge  of  the 
Truth?    What  would  be  the  result  if  all  tbose  who 

344 


JEAN    EVARTS 

today  are  struggling  against  sickness,  vice,  intem- 
perance, and  misfortune,  should  turn  under^and- 
ingly  to  God  for  help,  in^ead  of  to  senseless  drugs 
and  frail  human  methods? 

And  yet  we  know  that  the  day  is  coming  when 
"every  knee  shall  bow,  and  every  tongue  confess 
ray  name."  God's  work  is  done,  and  every  man 
mu^  sooner  or  later  lay  aside  selfishness,  vanity, 
pride,  and  all  human  ambitions  and  schemes,  mu^ 
put  off  the  sense  of  materiality,  and  stand  revealed 
as  the  image  and  likeness  of  Spirit,  the  infinite 
Mind  that  is  All-in-all. 

When  that  day  comes,  there  will  be  but  one 
religion,  the  religion  of  Jesus,  the  Ma^er.  No 
mortal  will  assume  to  be  his  vicegerent,  and  no 
cult  will  claim  a  monopoly  of  the  Truth;  but  all 
will  be  his  followers,  and  his  Father  shall  be 
theirs.  Creed  and  dogma  will  have  been  forgotten, 
and  pomp  and  dead  ceremony  will  have  passed 
into  oblivion.  The  worship  of  saints  and  human 
personality  will  have  followed  the  worship  of 
wooden  images  and  man-made  idols  into  the  outer 
darkness. 

In  that  day  it  will  be  underistood  that  the  mes- 
sage of  Jesus  was  the  good  news  that  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  is  at  hand,  and  that  the  attainment  of 
this  spiritual  consciousness  follows  righteousness, 
based  upon  right  thinking  about  God  and  Man. 
Our  terrible  and  distorted  concepts  of  a  future 
life,  of  a  material  heaven  and  hell,  will  have  faded 
into  their  native  nothingness,  together  with  the 
old  mediaeval  theolog}^  from  which  they  were  de- 

245 


THE  DIARY  OF 

rived.  Paul  defined  the  Kingdom  as  righteous- 
ness, peace,  joy,  holiness  of  life;  and  men  shall 
know  that  wherever  these  are,  there  is  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven — and  wherever  these  are  not, 
there  the  Kingdom  is  yet  to  be  attained. 

At  that  time,  men  will  not  set  apart  one  day 
out  of  seven  for  a  perfunclory  and  material  wor- 
ship of  the  Father,  who  feeds  and  cares  for  them 
every  hour,  nor  will  they  publicly  profess  a  faith 
that  their  daily  living  denies.  Preachers  will  no 
longer  hold  out  the  hope  of  another  world,  in^ead 
of  demonsl^rating  the  ever-presence  of  infinite 
Harmony ;  nor  will  droning  priests  continue  to  in- 
sult Intelligence  with  their  nasal  intonations  and 
their  tawdry  ceremonialism.  Jesus  will  be  taken  at 
his  word,  instead  of  approximated;  and  human 
thought  will  not  attempt  to  improve  upon  the  pure 
religion  which  he  taught  and  lived.  Instead,  men 
will  ^'preach  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at 
hand;  heal  the  sick,  cleanse  the  lepers,  caSl  out 
devils,  raise  the  dead." 

In  that  day,  hatred  and  jealousy,  and  every 
evil  thought  and  desire  will  have  melted  away,  and 
every  man  will  love  God,  Good,  supremely,  and 
his  neighbor  as  himself.  War,  and  the  glory  that 
is  lavished  upon  those  who  make  it  their  trade, 
will  have  yielded  to  peace,  and  the  greater  glory 
of  mastering  the  carnal  self.  Poverty  and  social 
evils  will  have  passed  away  forever,  strikes  and 
indu!?trial  revolutions  will  have  ceased,  for  God 
will  be  universally  recognized  as  infinite  Love,  the 
giver  of  all  good  and  of  all  that  men  need  to  re- 

346 


JEAN    EVARTS 

fle(^  Him.  Men  will  dwell  together  in  peace  and 
abiding  harmony,  and  business  dissensions  and 
islrife,  together  with  tru^s  and  boycotts,  and  all 
the  practices  that  are  founded  upon  selfishness 
and  lu§t,  will  have  gone  out  forever  from  con- 
sciousness. Newspapers  and  magazines  may  con- 
tinue to  be  published,  but  they  will  no  longer  a6t 
as  purveyors  of  revolting  crimes  and  accidents, 
for  in  the  atmosphere  of  right  thinking  that  shall 
obtain  in  that  day,  such  things  could  not  exi^. 
Men  will  cease  trying  to  know  evil,  for  they  w^ill 
see,  as  God  does,  that  it  is  impossible  to  really 
know  that  which  does  not  exist. 

At  that  time,  too,  there  will  be  but  one  phy- 
sician, infinite  Mind,  for  all  will  have  learned  that 
disease  is  but  the  externalization  of  disease- 
thought,  and  that,  in  the  words  of  the  French 
proverb,  "It  is  the  sick  man  who  makes  the  dis- 
ease." It  will  be  found  that,  despite  popular  be- 
liefs of  the  present  day,  Mind  has  supreme  influ- 
ence over  the  body,  even  to  the  casting  out  of  the 
mo^  dreaded  and  so-called  incurable  diseases,  and 
that  death  itself  will  yield  to  the  understanding 
of  Life  as  infinite  and  eternal.  Men  will  have  put 
aside  their  beliefs  in  so-called  laws  of  health,  and 
will  know  only  the  law  of  Grod,  the  law  of  right- 
eousness, right  thinking.  Materia  medica,  which 
today  so  ignorantly  treats  effects,  in  the  hope  of 
thereby  de^roying  the  cause,  will  have  yielded  to 
the  knowledge  that  the  cause  of  all  disease  is  men- 
tal, and  that  treating  the  effects  of  error  can  never 
de^roy  the  error  itself.    Men  will  know  that  men- 

247 


THE  DIARY  OF 

tal  phenomena  are  not  due  to  nerve-excitation, 
and  that,  as  one  of  the  greatest  natural  scienti^s 
has  said,  **It  is  utterly  impossible  to  conceive  of 
pain  except  as  a  ^ate  of  consciousness."  The 
false  science  of  materia  medica,  with  its  experi- 
mentation and  speculation,  its  human  theories  and 
limiting  opinions,  and  its  vain  search  for  Life 
within  the  body,  will  have  given  place  to  the  true 
Science  of  Chriistianity,  where,  in  the  knowledge 
of  God  as  infinite  Good,  there  can  be  no  fear  of 
sin  or  disease.  Men  will  have  ceased  laying  laws 
upon  one  another;  and  the  command,  *'Thou  shalt 
not  bear  false  witness,"  will  no  longer  be  broken. 
Innocent  children  will  no  more  be  condemned  to 
drag  out  years  of  misery,  blindness,  and  suffering 
from  distorted  bodies,  because  of  false  health  laws 
laid  upon  them  in  their  early  years  by  ignorant 
physicians,  such  physicians  as  are  now  turned 
loose  upon  a  credulous  public  by  thousands  every 
year  from  our  schools  of  medicine.  Nor  will  adults 
continue  to  submit  to  man-made  laws  of  age  and 
decrepitude,  of  waiting  tissues  and  degenerating 
organs,  for  all  will  know  that  matter  does  not,  and 
never  did,  possess  Life,  and  that  Man,  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God,  is  immortal. 

When  that  day  comes,  the  tremendous  effe6ls 
of  thought  as  the  cause  of  all  externalized  phe- 
nomena will  be  recognized,  and  men  will  think 
only  those  thoughts  that  they  wish  to  see  mani- 
fested in  their  conscious  experience.  The  awful 
effe6ts  of  mental  suggestion,  wilful  or  ignorant, 
the  dire  results  of  sugge^ing  evil  to  other  minds, 

348 


JEAN    EVARTS 

whether  it  be  sickness,  sin,  or  failure,  will  be  rec- 
ognized, and  men  will  "sland  guard"  at  the  door- 
way of  their  mentalities  and  permit  entrance  only 
to  those  thoughts  that  they  are  willing  to  see  ex- 
ternalized in  their  lives.  All  will  know  that,  "as 
a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he,"  whether  of 
false  thought,  resulting  in  the  mortal  who  mani- 
fe^s  sin,  sickness,  and  death,  or  of  real  thought, 
resulting  in  the  revealing  of  the  true  Man,  bring- 
ing into  conscious  experience  harmony  and  im- 
mortality. 

Men  pray  for  the  millennium,  not  knowing  that 
the  second  coming  of  Chrisl  is  already  an  accom- 
plished fa6t.  Indeed,  the  Chrif^fc  Principle  never 
left  the  world.  It  is  here  today,  and  is  as  avail- 
able as  when  Jesus  applied  it  with  such  certainty, 
over  nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  But,  though  it 
is  here  and  available,  men  musl  become  pure  in 
heart,  in  motive  and  tliought,  if  they  would  see 
God.  No  man  can  successfully  apply  any  prin- 
ciple until  he  is  willing  to  empty  his  mind  of 
prejudice  and  human  opinion,  and  give  himself 
wholly  to  the  demands  which  that  principle  makes 
upon  him.  It  is  so  with  the  infinite  Principle  of 
Being:  it  will  transform  men's  lives  as  water 
transforms  the  desert  into  rich  gardens. 

It  is  sometimes  asked,  Why  does  not  God  do 
this  anyway,  why  does  He  not  transform  men's 
lives,  regardless  of  their  attitude? 

God's  work  is  done.  He  has  created  all  that  is, 
and  He  saw  that  His  Creation  was  good.  He  has 
given  all  good  to  mankind,  and  He  can  do  no  more 

349 


THE  DIARY  OF 

for  us  than  He  has  already  done.  It  is  for  us  to 
see,  to  know,  that  He  has  done  this.  It  is  by  know- 
ing that  He  has  already  bestowed  all  good  upon  us 
that  we  are  enabled  to  put  aside  our  false  beliefs, 
and  become  receptive  to  what  He  has  given  us. 
The  sunlight  taps  at  the  closed  shutters :  it  is  for 
us  to  open  them. 

But  the  putting  of  false  thoughts  out  of  con- 
sciousness is  the  work  of  Truth,  and  so  is  God's 
work.  Therefore,  He  does  do  for  men  just  what 
this  question  implies  that  He  does  not.  The  work 
of  redemption  is  always  the  work  of  Truth,  and 
that  is  God.  He  sees  no  evil.  It  is  for  men  to 
know  this,  and  to  avail  themselves  of  the  Principle 
which  will  bring  into  their  conscious  experience 
all  that  they  need  to  express  and  manife^  Good. 

All  men  are  seeking  Good.  Since  the  begin- 
ning of  hi^ory  they  have  diligently  sought  it.  But 
they  have  sought  it  ignorantly,  and  have  woefully 
misinterpreted  it  to  themselves.  The  growth  of 
Chrii^tianity  is  not  attested  by  the  increase  in  hos- 
pitals and  charitable  organizations,  but  by  remov- 
ing the  necessity  for  these  things,  and  by  men's 
increasing  ability  to  overcome  sin  and  discord  by 
applying  the  Christ  Principle  to  human  needs.  The 
search  for  that  which  will  gratify  the  physical 
senses  is  not  seeking  Good.  These  senses  cannot 
tei^tify  of  Good,  nor  are  they  in  any  sense  the 
measure  of  that  which  is  real.  Asa  recent  scholar 
has  said,  ''There  is  not  the  slightest  speculative 
warrant  for  making  our  senses  the  measure  of 
reality,  and  he  who  does  so  is  ignorant  or  ^upid." 

350 


JEAN    EVART8 

The  mad  rush  for  material  wealth;  the  cruel  lu^ 
for  gold  which  drives  men  to  desftroy  human  lives 
with  opium  and  gin,  even  while  those  who  traffic 
in  human  misery  offer  hypocritical  prayers  of 
thanksgiving  in  the  es^tablished  church  that  they 
are  not  as  other  men ;  the  insane  desire  for  ma- 
terial sensations  and  so-called  bodily  pleasures; 
the  lu^l;  of  the  eyes  and  the  sensuous  cravings  of 
the  carnal  mind,  do  not  lead  to  God.  They  lead  to 
pleasures  that  turn  to  ashes,  and  to  empty  hearts 
that  are  left  desolate  when  the  ^rife  is  ended. 

But,  though  the  human  mind  has  wandered  far 
a^ray,  it  can  never  get  beyond  the  voice  of  in- 
finite Love,  that  bids  it  return  and  give  up  its  false 
pleasures  and  false  thinking — that  bids  it  lay 
aside  those  things  that  can  never  satisfy,  and 
enter  into  that  knowledge  of  real  Good  which  is 
Life  eternal.  Jesus  long  ago  pointed  out  the  only 
way.  None  other  has  been  found  since.  Mrs. 
Eddy  again  indicated  it  to  mankind,  and  herself 
walked  in  it  to  show  us  whither  it  leads  and  how 
we  ourselves  can  become  followers  of  the  great 
Ma^er,  and,  laying  down  all  the  falsities  of  ma- 
terial thought  that  would  impede  us,  enter  the 
gateway  that  opens  into  immortality. 

Gratitude!  0  Father,  I  shall  never  cease  to 
praise  Thy  name  for  revealing  this  Truth  to  me, 
for  showing  me  its  infinite  power,  and  for  making 
me  a  channel  through  which  it  is  brought  to  those 
about  me  whose  hearts  are  yearning  for  some- 
thing more  than  the  vain  offerings  of  the  human 
mind! 

361 


THE  DIARY  OF  JEAN  EVARTS 

In  the  di^ance  I  see  my  husband  approaching ; 
and  my  little  son,  catching  sight  of  him,  rushes 
down  the  garden  walk  with  shouts  of  joy  to  greet 
him.  The  golden  haze  of  this  midsummer  after- 
noon hangs  like  a  veil  over  the  di^ant  hills  and 
the  quiet  bay,  and  through  it  there  floats  to  my 
ears  a  medley  of  indi^incl  sounds  from  the  busy 
world  of  thought  that  surrounds  our  little  home. 

Home !  That  beautiful  symbol  of  our  home  in 
infinite  Love,  wherein  we  dwell  "under  the 
shadow  of  the  Almighty."  And  this  is  the  solu- 
tion of  our  ' '  problem ' '  externalized.  Here,  in  this 
garden  of  Nature,  our  paths  joined  and  we  began 
that  comradeship  which  has  seemed  to  crown  all 
the  manifold  blessings  that  infinite  Love  has 
showered  upon  me.  Here,  with  lives  consecrated 
to  the  service  of  our  fellow  men,  we  are  watching 
and  working,  bringing  every  thought  into  captiv- 
ity to  Him,  and  striving  for  that  Mind  which  was 
in  Chri^  Jesus. 

As  I  watch  my  dear  ones  coming  up  the  path- 
way, the  father  always  the  same  manifestation  of 
sympathy  and  tenderness  that  turned  my  sorrow 
into  joy  so  long  ago,  and  the  child  a  symbol  of 
innocence  and  purity,  my  heart  seems  bursting 
with  the  fulness  of  God's  love,  and  there  come  to 
my  lips  the  words  of  the  Apo.^le,  ''Beloved,  now 
are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be :  but  we  know  that,  when  he  shall 
appear,  we  shall  be  like  him ;  for  we  shall  see  him 
as  he  is." 


362 


3  1158  01068  5278 


A     000  029  937     o 


^.v4*\;\.'.  \ 


University  of  Ca! 

Southern  Regi 

Library  Faci! 


